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Quote by Lily Brooks-Dalton

“Psychologically necessary equipment. The human mind had never been tested quite like this. Could they have been better prepared? Trained more extensively? What tools would help them now? It seemed ridiculous, but perhaps these books, sheaves of paper made from trees that had once grown on their home planet, full of made-up stories, were what kept Thebes so much more grounded than the rest of them.”

Quote by Lily Brooks-Dalton

Book:Good Morning, Midnight
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Good Morning, Midnight

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Lily Brooks-Dalton

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“Without doubt, it was a single cloudberry--- wrapped, like a gift, in a gauzy spider's web. Golden-red, the color of cognac, and shaped like its cousin the raspberry, but with fatter, yet fewer, juice-filled druplets, its solitariness hinted that its life had begun as a seed dropped by a bird; a fugitive out on its own, not part of a patch. Typically found in remote and scattered locations, cloudberries elude even the best and most hyper-local of foragers. So few in number are they, that they seem unreal--- the fruits of mountain fairies or goblins. Cloudberries are a distinct rarity in Britain, often more rumor than reality. I had never seen them in the wild in Scotland (though other walkers have), nor in the moorlands of northern England, where they are also reported to grow, each stem boasting just a single fruit. Notoriously hard to cultivate commercially--- needing snow in the winter, followed by the right succession of damp, sun, rain and even fog--- they grow mainly in Arctic and sub-Arctic regions, where wild fruit is scant and the summer sun never fully sets.”

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Book:Cold Kitchen: A Year of Culinary Travels
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“Tiger-orange, and so dreamy and evocative of name, cloudberries had been on my mind for years. The first time I ever came across them on a menu, rather than in a field guide, was in a bistro on Estonia's Baltic Coast, in Pärnu, as a jam to accompany cake. As I was curious to try the preserve, the waiter agreed to bring me a spoonful, despite the cake being off the menu. Golden and precious as the amber torn from rocks at the bottom of the Baltic Sea, it gleamed.”

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Book:Cold Kitchen: A Year of Culinary Travels
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“It is late afternoon, darkness is falling and a stall in the town square is glowing like a candle. Tiny punnets of bright-orange berries on the twig-- sea buckthorn-- and jars of cloudberry jam jostle with honey and crimson lingonberries. I will not carry jars or bottles in my luggage, but I pick up a couple of cartons of berries to eat raw. Buckthorn lives true to its name, and after a few minutes of parting the berries from their branches my thumb feels like a pincushion. I pick up a pocket-sized jar of jam and the fruit is tart, extremely so, and therefore right up my street. I nibble the berries as I walk. Cloudberry jam, in common with most berry preserves, has too much sugar for me but it is good too, bright-tasting and sharp. I will bring it down at breakfast tomorrow, to eat with Lapland yoghurt. The buckthorn jam is pleasing, though not enough to risk bringing a jar wine in a suitcase. It does keep a little of its acidity when simmered with enough sugar to make it keep. That is probably why it works, like damson, blackcurrant, plum and gooseberry. The more tart the fruit, the better the jam.”

BerriesFinlandJamsCloudberriesBuckthorn
Book:A Thousand Feasts: Small Moments of Joy… A Memoir of Sorts
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