Medzmama had her own special way of freezing berries. Yes, there were blueberry bushes at the greenhouse along the Connecticut River, in the sunny corner where the packing room met the glass houses, and the berries were prolific. Ahsin (age 5?) would say bigger is better (or was it smaller is sweeter) as she would pick the largest berries she could find (and as she was taller, she had a better chance at getting all the bigger berries which were nearer the sun), but Girol (age 3 1/2?) would retort, "Smaller is sweeter," as she was relegated to picking the berries that her sister left. (Whether the girls were talking about themselves or the berries is unclear!)
Later, taking their baskets brimming with blue to the house, they watched Medzmama as she processed the berries. After rinsing the berries in cool water and drying them on a clean terry-cloth towel, Medzmama set aside the berries that the family could use in a week, and prepared the rest of the berries for freezing. And how did she freeze them? A good trick that Marash Girl remembers to this day (and actually uses regularly). . . Medzmama spread the clean dry berries in one layer on a cookie tray, and placed the tray in her freezer. After several hours, the berries would be frozen. She was able to easily remove the berries from the tray, and pour them into a plastic bag, sealing the bag so that it would be airtight, returning the now bagged berries to the freezer. Using this method, Medzmama was assured that the berries that her precious tornigs had picked would always be "pourable" and "frost free", ready to stir into the batter for her next batch of blueberry muffins!
Medzmama also froze her tomato paste (when she only used a part of a can) by adding the paste in tablespoons full onto a tray, placing the tray into the freezer, and then, after the blobs of paste were frozen, pouring them into a plastic bag and back into the freezer. She would then use a blog whenever she needed it for soup or whatever. Later, I froze grapes the same way!
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