Huckleberry Heaven

The people of the Pacific Northwest apparently LOVE some huckleberries. Now, coming from the land of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, I am kind of ashamed to admit that I thought that huckleberry was just a goofy sounding fictional nickmame until I was in Hannibal a few year ago and I bought some huckleberry honey. The ingredients were: honey and huckleberry. Hmm. Who knew? (Well, maybe everyone but me.)

Anyway, I still have that unopened huckleberry honey. I finally tried this unfortunately named berry for the first time yesterday. Borrowing a description of it from one of our dining companions, the huckleberry is "like a poor man's blueberry".

Huckleberry things I had tried since losing my huckleberry virginity:

• A spinach salad with chanterelles, chevre, pecans, huckleberries, and a poppyseed vinaigrette
• Huckleberry ice cream with huckleberry syrup
• Huckleberry burnt cream (serve as part of a trio of creme brulees:vanilla with a pineapple garnish, huckleberry with a strawberry garnish, and some absolutely KILLER ginger creme brulee with crystalized ginger garnish-to die for)

The bakery across the street from the hotel has a (get this) Lemon Thyme BUTTERMILK cupcake with Huckleberry Buttercream that I think I will try today. At the very least they are adorable cupcakes.

Now if I could just find a region where they honor the farkleberry.