Blackberry Dreams: When the deep purple falls, over sleepy garden walls...

Nancy Leson talked about foraging for blackberries in her Seattle Times blog All You Can Eat last Friday.












Link
http://blog.seattletimes.nwsource.com/allyoucaneat/2008/08/15/urban_foraging_a_berry_good_pa/


It got me to thinking about the last time I foraged for blackberries and made a summer dish. We lived in Lacey at the time and behind our block was a huge field overgrown with blackberry hedges. We'd arm ourselves with long sleeves, jeans, sturdy shoes and a bucket or two. Afterwards we'd come back with our buckets overflowing, our arms scratched, our fingers and lips stained for our efforts.

We'd reserve half the blackberries for pie making and the rest for later. The pie blackberries would be washed and tossed in a mixing bowl with sugar, flour and nutmeg and let sit for an hour to thicken. Then we'd pour the sticky, gooey blackberries into a pie dish which were covered with either home made or store bought pie crust and baked. Since it didn't have a pie crust on the bottom of the pan, technically it was a blackberry cobbler.

The remaining blackberries we'd eat throughout the week, plopping them into our cereal bowls, eating with yogurt and topping our vanilla ice cream with.

Is there anything more simple and instinctive than berry picking and hauling them back to the kitchen to make a summer dessert?


I had an amazing nectarine crisp the other night, courtesy of the culinary goddess Marilyn Smith. My dainty bowl had warm slices of nectarine crisp topped with an oat and brown sugar crust, and a dollop of whipped cream. It was intoxicating and quintessentially Northwest. There were many eyes-a-rolling in ecstasy around the table that night.

So now I have berry pies, fruit cobblers and fruit crisps on the brain.

Makes me want to get out my basket and go urban foraging before the summer is over!