The only down side I can see to fruit are fruit flies.We eat a lot of fruit in our office. You know it’s 3 o’clock when Thor asks, “Who wants orange?”The problem is by this time of year the fruit flies have arrived like teeny tiny vultures hovering over the newsroom waiting for someone to drop a grape or leave their watermelon unattended. Toss something in any given trash can and they plume upward like a mushroom cloud.It’s bad.Despite popular belief fruit flies are not spontaneously generated whenever fruit arrives on the scene. According to About.com, they can actually zero in on fruit from miles away, aim for it like a heat seeking missile and because they’re so tiny work their way into any place.It seems odd that they would pick out cherry pits in my garbage can or Thor’s orange rinds in a second floor office building in the middle of downtown Lynn. Aren’t there farm stands or even grocery stores that are easier to get into?They also reproduce ridiculously fast so once they’re in?they’re in.Getting rid of them includes common sense approaches like cleaning and setting traps. Apparently fruit flies are lobsters of the insect world – pour a little cider vinegar in a cup cover it with plastic wrap, secure it with a rubber band and poke a few small holes in the top and the flies can get in but can’t get out.I also read that burning incense helps. Maybe we’ll have a little office cleansing later this week.Fruit flies be damned we are still in the midst of great summer fruit. We’re moving into what I think of as our second string berry season, blackberries and raspberries.You know what the difference is between black and rasp berries other than the color? Blackberries are solid clusters of tiny globes but the “torus) or whole stem, of a raspberries remains on the bramble so they have a hollow core. Apparently by some technical horticultural reference blackberries aren’t really considered to be a berry either but I view that in the same vein as a tomato technically being a fruit–po-tay-toe/po-tah-toe. Blackberries and particularly raspberries are popular but they will never quite eclipse their cousins, straw and blue, which is why I consider them second string. It doesn’t help that they’re also like the caviar of the fruit world, they cost the same as strawberries or blueberries but you get less than half the amount.I have one friend who is already inundated with ripened raspberries and another who is about to become flush with blackberries and the latter is wondering what to do with them. Is there life for the blackberry beyond yogurt and a cobbler–why yes there is.A decade ago raspberries were all the rage and people were dropping them into everything from salad dressings to truffles to glazes for pork and chocolate cake alike. I couldn’t get away from them, they were everywhere and I don’t particularly like them.Blackberries are not quite as ubiquitous or as sweet but they can be used about the same way and i like them much better. For simplicity you can toss them in cereal, yogurt, a smoothie or even sangria or a bellini. Add them to fruit salad, a fruit tart, a trifle or top vanilla pudding, custard, ice cream, sorbet or even chicken salad with them. You can turn the pretty purple fruit into a cobbler, a crisp or a grunt (like crisp but topped with baking soda biscuits).Or like raspberries you can muddle them into submission for a glaze to pour over cheesecake or ribs, or you can layer them into a parfait, use crushed berries mixed with a pinch of brown sugar as a topping for pancakes or lemon squares. Stir them into frosting for cupcakes or into lemon curd just because it would taste really, really good.But even if you try all that, and you still have more than you know what to do with, you can always drop them at 38 Exchange Street, where we like our fruit. We’re on the second floor, easy to find, just follow the little black cloud of fruit flies.