A Tall Cool One For A Summer Day, Mulberry Lassi.

    It's been hot here in Sonoma. We've had another heat wave and the Summer has hardly even begun. It's not weather for doing a lot of cooking, or at least not doing it indoors.  This is salad weather, this is drinking your meals weather. Of course, I'm still in renovation mode and I've simply given up looking for my Ninja Blender. I know it's around here somewhere, but like I've mentioned before, boxes. I can't seem to locate it. I know it'll turn up one of these days, but yesterday I really really wanted it, because I had a craving for lassi, triggered by finding mulberries at our local organic Farmers Market.
 
   Since childhood I've been hearing about mulberries, as in the infamous "Here We Go Round..." yet I'd never seen one, since My friend Pamela Timms of Heat and Dust did a guest post for me during moving week, it was a recipe for Mulberry and Lemon Yogurt Cake. After that I simply had to find some mulberries. Of course, I never really expected to, because I just had never ever seen them anywhere. Currants, yes. Gooseberries, yes. Ollaliie berries no problem, but when it came to Mulberries, it was a big zero. That was until Friday morning when I noticed something I'd never seen at the Farmers Market before.

Mulberries!

   Of course there are many varieties of this fruit and they seem to grow nearly everywhere. They come in a variety of shapes and shades. Why hadn't I run across them before, who knows why? It was fate, kismet, whatever. The mulberries I found in Sonoma looked different that then the ones Pamela was cooking with in India, but I'm sure they were just as good. The main difference in our berries came from the stories I'd heard from friends in India of foraging for them in mulberry season when they are everywhere, and free. Not so much here in Sonoma, where I wound up paying 5 bucks for a small basket.

   I figured since I gorge all Summer on the free blackberries that grow around here, it all evens out in the end financially, but there was no way I was going to have enough mulberries to make Pamelas' excellent cake, (I'll probably try it with blackberries this summer) nor the mulberry pancake recipe she sent me (blackberries again). But lassi I could make! Provided my blender ever turned up. After a fairly exhaustive search (until the pile of boxes got too deep and I got too hot and thirsty) I decided to just borrow a blender. To top it off our friend the mysterious Mr. X , who'd been cleaning family memorabilia out of his basement ran across some old Indian Railroad pamphlets from long long ago.  When he heard I was making mulberry lassi, he gave them to me. That was all I needed, I had to make this happen.

Mulberry Lassi

Here's What You Need:
3 Tbs of stemmed mulberries. (This is not as easy as it sounds since I found getting the stems out of these little buggers, challenging to say the least)
1 cup of plain yogurt
A pinch of coarse salt
4 ice cubes
2 Tbs of powdered sugar
1/8 cup of water

Here's What To Do: 
Put the ice cubes in the blender...

...followed by the yogurt...

...Mulberries...

...water, and sugar.

Start your engines and turn this stuff into lassi.

Chill, pour and enjoy!!

   This recipe is super fast and easy and if you don't have mulberries try some other fruit, you won't be sorry. As for more mulberries, I enjoyed these so much I'm going to the Farmers Market again next week, to see if the mulberry people are back and if they are........
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