What To Do With Summer Fruits — Mango Blackberry Lime Sorbet
Gentle Rain and A Misty Morning
My favorite kind of Asheville Morning… it’s raining gently as we wake up, wrapping the mountains in mist. All the colors are soft, the day starts in an easy way and life is good….
Soon, the sun will come out and diamonds will be everywhere. I’ll have to visit the glistening jewel-laden blueberry bushes in just a little while….
Mango Blackberry Lime Sorbet
Yesterday I made Mango Blackberry Lime Sorbet — Heaven on a spoon! Making fresh sorbet is my favorite simple way to use ripe and ready summer fruits.
Preferably, use a combination of fruits where one is sweeter and others are more tart. Mangoes are very sweet right now. Blackberries a little less sweet. Limes, of course are tart. A perfect combination.
Mango Blackberry Lime Sorbet
2 large Mangoes, peeled, chunked a bit. See directions below for “How To Cut A Mango.”
About 1 cup fresh blackberries, preferably from somebody’s local patch
1 Lime, squeezed — and make lime zest, too, and throw into the mix. Use a fine grater, microplane or zester tool. Get only the green part of the skin, not the white pith.
Put everything in a cuisinart (for slightly chunky sorbet option, which is my favorite) — or a blender (for smooth and blended sorbet).
Mix and taste. Add honey or aguave to taste. You don’t need much, if any. Don’t over-sweeten — it will hide the taste of the fruit. You want the taste of the fruit to be front and center.
How To Cut A Mango
Smoosh the pit in your hand to get all the good stuff — get it all! Nobody in a how-to video tells you to do that, but this part is the most fun (and by far the messiest!!). The pit is a bit like a slippery bar of soap, but go for it. Not exactly something you’d want to do with 8 kids at a birthday party!!! Well, maybe….! They would be entertained for hours!
For an excellent and simple chef’s video on how to cut a mango, go here .
Christie Lenee can play a guitar. She’s the 2017 International Finger Style Guitar Champion of the Year. In September of last year in London, she also won Acoustic Guitarist of the Year.
But lucky for us, she’s not just a champion guitar player. Christie Lenee is also quite the composer.
A friend of hers, Michael Pukac, requested that she write a song, one he described as “the story of love.” She scribbled notes and went to work.
Through Christie’s ability to imagine, his desire became music. Now she plays this song for the world with her love fingers. Lucky you, lucky me, lucky us.
Take very good care of yourself this week. Why not sing a little…
You’re broken down and tired Of living life on a merry go round And you can’t find the fighter But I see it in you so we gonna walk it out And move mountains We gonna walk it out And move mountains
And I’ll rise up I’ll rise like the day I’ll rise up I’ll rise unafraid I’ll rise up And I’ll do it a thousand times again And I’ll rise up High like the waves I’ll rise up In spite of the ache I’ll rise up And I’ll do it a thousand times again
For you For you For you For you
When the silence isn’t quiet And it feels like it’s getting hard to breathe And I know you feel like dying But I promise we’ll take the world to its feet And move mountains Bring it to its feet And move mountains
And I’ll rise up I’ll rise like the day I’ll rise up I’ll rise unafraid I’ll rise up And I’ll do it a thousand times again
For you For you For you For you
All we need, all we need is hope And for that we have each other And for that we have each other And we will rise We will rise We’ll rise, oh, oh We’ll rise
I’ll rise up Rise like the day I’ll rise up In spite of the ache I will rise a thousand times again And we’ll rise up High like the waves We’ll rise up In spite of the ache We’ll rise up And we’ll do it a thousand times again
During this strange time in history, I noticed y’all were tackling all sorts of interesting projects. I decided I needed one, too—something positive to remember the pandemic of 2020 by.
I decided to pay attention to something I had abandoned…
Nope, I’m not cleaning my garage. I am not organizing one single thing. I’m not planting a garden or cleaning up my yard.
Instead, I decided to take care of myself better. This, folks, has made all the difference for me.
With relatively little time and effort on my part, I feel so much better than I did a month ago.
On March 30, I got on the exercise bike and the yoga mat for the first time in a long time, and did 30 minutes each. I liked it so much that I decided to do it every day. But I fell short of that, and changed my commitment to every other day, which felt more manageable, reasonable, and doable.
I also get off the bike after every song, take a couple of sips of water, shake out my legs and arms for a few seconds, and get back on. This makes the bike project a reasonable proposition, too.
Daily walks of any length—by myself, or with my little guy, Jackson—are a fresh air bonus.
My recumbent exercise bike has pulleys to work my upper body while I pedal, which gets my heart rate up fast, and also helps my whole-body strength. It feels good to get up from writing, or doing a consulting session with a client, to do something physically challenging while listening to good music.
After only a month, I feel a sheet of muscles on the front of me I haven’t felt for a very, very long time. Goodness gracious. Who knew they were there. I’ll be posting rippling ab photos soon, I’m sure.
I have no idea what the scales have to say about my bike/yoga project—I don’t care. Paying attention to scales tends to send me sideways, and therefore, I’m ignoring them completely.
But—I LOVE the way I feel! Hang in there, everyone.