Basil. Blackberries. Fingers stained in dark purple juice. Taking a whole basil leaf into my mouth, the cool sweet-bitter flavor rising up into my nose and the back of my throat. I stir the juicy filling together, pinch the crumbling topping between my fingers. I touch the cut edge of a lemon to my lips, the bright acid making me pucker. A sip of water. I wipe glistening sweat from my neck. The hint of a barely there breeze tugs the curtain back and forth. The sound of cicadas rises and falls in the lunging afternoon heat.

In the kitchen I weave my way into the making of things. My ingredients are my paints, my dish is my canvas. The process of photographing and capturing it all offers me a separateness from the action which feels much like meditating. I adjust a berry, notice the way my eye moves across my space, adjust a bit more, snap snap snap. As with much of my practice in yoga, I explore my limits every time I show up. Somedays I need less tweaking and focus, more flow. Somedays that intense awareness of each individual part of the process feels inspired and aware, like I'm unlocking bits of my inner self I didn't know existed.

This is art. Making, if even for the sake of making. Exploring beauty within the will to make, within the process. Connecting to something more than your individual sense of self in the creative act and the creation itself.

This blackberry basil crumble started as a dream. As most things do. I have a spiral-bound, blank art journal in which I scramble out my thoughts, toss them around, draw and chart and list. Of all of the in-season foods I'm currently feeling inspired by (squash! tomatoes! mushrooms!) blackberries and basil reach the top of the list. I eat both by the handful. I wrote out a page of all of the recipe ideas bouncing around my head, and a crumble came to mind. Ah, a blackberry crumble. Lovely. And seeing how thick basil bouquets have been making their way into my salads and sauces as of late, I figured it was about time I tried it in a sweet dish. It turns out that basil brings out a refined flavor in blackberries. Basil is a sweet, bitter, cooling herb. And blackberries, too, are sweet and cooling. They marry naturally, as if made for each other. The pairing gives this crumble a certain je ne sais quoi. 

This crumble, sweetened with dates, is a celebration of midsummer bounty. It's a balance of flavors and textures: sweet, juicy, tangy, aromatic, herbal, creamy, and crisp. And it's simple to pull together, as a crumble should be. Use the sweetest fat blackberries you can find. This is the sort of treat that makes any day of the week feel like a special occasion. And thanks to the whole food ingredients and low glycemic index it won't give you a sugar crash or make you feel sick after, say, eating an entire pan to yourself. It's the sort of treat that makes you feel like life is a refined, easeful, beautiful, joyful thing.