I admit, I’m a bit of a hoarder. If an item has any trace of nostalgia, I will want to keep it. If it has any potential use in the future, I will want to keep it. There are piles of old textbooks, workbooks, and class notes from my high school days stacked next to my desk at home. I only threw out my middle school notes a year or two ago. Somewhere in one of my desk drawers, you’ll likely find handwritten notes (the ones you sneak under the desk to your friend) from elementary school or figurines I collected as a child. This is one of the several reasons I tell my parents not to sell the house.

Pinned up on my whiteboard is an info graphic I ripped out of a magazine probably three years ago. It’s been on that white board since then. On it are eight different ways to use summer fruits, such as cobbler, pandowdy, grunt, and buckle, and even which utensil you should probably use to eat it. (I found a digital copy here! Isn’t it adorable?) Every summer, I look at this paper and tell myself “I need to try one of these” but for some reason, just end up eating all the summer fruit as is.

When I was asked to bring dessert to my friends’ BC Day potluck, I referenced this handy dandy paper and decided to make a crisp. I keep calling it a crumble, but as the info graphic points out, crisps “have oatmeal and/or nuts in the topping” whereas crumbles are topped with streusel “made from only sugar, flour, and butter.” This chart is so helpful!

With my heart set on crisp, I opened the fridge to see what fruit was available. The blueberries and blackberries we picked with my cousin a few days ago were still sitting on the shelf, perfect! As I was washing the berries for this recipe, I popped a few too many berries into my mouth (probably like a cup). See what I mean by I just end up eating all the fruit?

This berry crisp is a little bit different from the others because it is lightly perfumed with lavender. Blueberry and lavender pair beautifully together; I realized this after trying a blueberry lavender brownie on campus. One of the stops on our Kelowna road trip was a lavender farm. While we were there, we inhaled as much of the blissful scent as possible and picked up two tiny bottles essential oil to bring home. The oils we bought are safe for eating so I added a small drop to the berry filling to give it an element of surprise.

Since in-season fruit is already sweet, not much additional sugar is needed; you could leave it unsweetened if you like. Fruit crisp is a healthy choice because it is naturally sweetened and the topping is made from wholesome oats and almonds. Enjoyed warm with a generous scoop of ice cream, this is a delectable way to use up the endless fruits of summer and feed a large party. I adore desserts like these because there is contrast between hot and cold, soft and crunchy. It’s like an all-in-one dessert!