Berry nice

Well, before I run off to work for the day, I thought I'd share this bowl of berries and cream with you, as a preview of my next We Like It Raw post. I needed to use up some leftover icing as the cream in this dish, and the berries were the perfect complement.

You see, I had berries on the brain, since this week's recipe was inspired by my great grandma Flossye (that's a picture of her as a child). "Ain't that the berries," was one of her favorite phrases (my aunt and uncle even wrote a song about it on their dulcimers), so I served the finished product alongside some raspberries, of course.

Berries and cream also reminds me of The Moon, a little coffee shop/cafe in downtown Annapolis that my friends and I frequented as teens. We would stop by late in the evening for my favorite dessert at the time, which we would wash down with a cup of coffee. Sometimes we would do shots of espresso until we were so wired we couldn't sleep (now I have the same problem when I consume chocolate in the evening).

One time, I took my parents there for a bite and to have some highly caffeinated shooters (I forget what The Moon called them). For some reason, they lacked their usual punch, and my mom, sister and I all fell asleep on the ride home. Luckily, my father, who was driving at the time, did not feel the drowsy effects. He must have had an Energizer from one of my other favorite hangouts.

I can't remember the name of it, but we also used to go to another coffee shop/cafe in College Park. Help me out here if you were in the area in the early 90s. I think it was called something like Planet Java, but that name is already taken by some other establishment in Florida. Anyway, it unfortunately burnt down, so I heard.

In addition to an extensive menu of coffee drinks and food (they served the biggest plate of nachos I've ever seen, and the Snickers eruption dessert was something worth remembering), they also concocted a line of energy drinks like the Energizer and Memory Booster. They were packed with supplements like ginseng, bee pollen, royal jelly, etc. I don't think I even knew what these ingredients were at the time, but I guess they were on to something.

I probably need a Memory Booster now to help me remember the name of that coffee shop. At least I could recall enough about my great grandmother's recipe to make a raw version. Check it out on WLIR later today or tomorrow. I think she would have been proud of me.