The pick-your-own farms that litter the Delaware river bed are in full season.The fertile land holds many of my earliest childhood memories that is the joy of gorging yourself in a field of fresh ripe berries that are just waiting to be eaten.

This weekend my sister and I picked our hearts out at Phillips Farm in Milford, New Jersey. This sprawling and vast 200 acre farm sits above the mighty Delaware River and offers an amazing selection of pick-your-own strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, raspberries & peaches

After picking our black raspberries and blueberries, we headed home to help prepare for a feast that night, a celebration of my sisters return to the States. Her father, a veteran pastry chef turned IT professional, had been preparing food for the occasion and smoking a brisket all day. I decided to make a dessert from the fresh berries we had picked that day for the occasion and came up with this recipe.

The tart was a lovely, indulgent and refreshing finale to the mass feast dubbed 'Lynchfeast' and was shared in the wee hours of the night over candle light on the patio overlooking Lynch creek where the feast was held. The tart was devoured that night and no evidence remained except the berry blood stained grins that were on the faces of the satisfied friends and family.

On hot summer days like the past few weeks have seen; its to hot to cook, to move, or to do just about anything. Philadelphia, Like the rest of the Northeastern seaboard, has been enveloped by a hot, sticky, humid, mess of a summer; however, for me, this can only be made acceptable by the promise of a delicious tomato season. These lycopene rich fruits generally come to Pennsylvania in July and are around until roughly September. If you are lucky enough to be able to pick up some tomatoes at a local farm stand in season, you can truly taste the vast difference between heirloom and local tomatoes, as opposed to their bastardized GMO and off season sisters available year round at many super market chains.