Blackberry sorbet

I foraged for blackberries at the weekend. Actually I got distracted en route to the blackberry brambles down by my local brook, by a plum tree in the middle of my street dropping its ripe fruit left right and centre on the ground, to the delight and ecstasy of our local ant population, who by the looks of things were holding several celebrations in honour of this unexpected fruitfest. I ran back to the house, dug out a ladder and a large cardboard box, lugged both back to the tree, climbed precariously to the top of the ladder so I could reach the ripest of the plums - the ones at the top of the tree, which had had the benefit of the most sun to fatten and juice up - and a few minutes later I had a box full of beautful plump plums, which I lugged away triumphantly while the ants went into mourning. This gives you an idea of how determined a forager I can be. Blackberries are the devil to pick. They are probably the best protected wild fruit I can think of. You want blackberries? Prepare for battle. Of course if you are content with the tiny malnourished ones at the front, be my guest. Me, I want the ones with nodules the size of grapes, which are always tantalisingly, tortuously, just out of reach, at the top of the bramble heap, or at the very back, or, slightly counterintuitively, buried deep beneath the thorns. So you need a game plan. First, dress for battle. Tough jeans, wellington boots, long sleeves. Second, find your weapon. In this case, a very long stick. Third, bring something to put the blackberries in that can hook over your stick as you need both hands for this - one to pick the fruit, the other to wield the stick. See? Years of experience and thousands of superficial thorn scratches have given me this knowledge. I spend hours in the bushes reaching as far as I can for the best that there are. Later on at home I regard my tub of blackberries with the same hilarious sensation I experience every August after a foraging afternoon. What the hell to do with it all? I could freeze them, but the problem is, and you will know this if you are a regular reader of this blog, that my freezer is already stuffed with forest fruits that I picked at a PYO farm just a couple of weeks ago. So why pick these blackberries? Well, why not, really. They were there. Now I need to work out how not to waste them. I'm not a huge fan of pies and crumbles aren't massively popular with the family so I need a plan B. and I find it on the internet, as you find most things, having typed in a google question along the lines of, what can I do with my surfeit of blackberries. And up pops a recipe for blackberry sorbet. I create sugar water, which I chill. I take it out of the fridge after a couple of hours. Blitz all my blackberries, the entire haul, in a food processor, add them to the sugar water, stir. Add lemon, and in my case, because by now I have departed from the recipe, as I often do as ideas occur to me while I stir or pound, I add cassis. I strain the lot through a metal sieve, dispose of the blackberry goo and put the by now gothic ruby coloured liquid into the freezer. Take it out after around 90 minutes, blitz in the food processor, return to the freezer. Leave another 90 minutes, Take it out again, blitz it again. I should put it back in the freezer but it looks so fluffily beautiful that instead I call my family whose antennae have already registered that a baking session is in full flow and who therefore are not tardy in their response. We spoon the half done sorbet. It's delicious. It's sweet and a bit tart and smooth and rich and fluffy. We have to stop ourselves before we've eaten half of it. I drag us away from it and return it to the freezer. I dream about it overnight. We'll have it tonight for dessert. If it survived breakfast.