This Reminds Me

Archive for June 27th, 2006

On the long drive home from Tyler on Sunday, we stopped to pick blueberries at Blueberry Farms, a really neat family-owned business.

I’d never much liked blueberries.  Oh, sure, they add color to cobbler and whatever, but I thought of them much like political debates - mostly woody and basically tasteless.

Rachel – fearing association with her “ghetto family” – felt it necessary to straighten her hair and apply make-up before heading to the fields in 100 degree heat.  I’m thinking migrant farm work is not in her future.

These berries purpled my tongue, filled my tummy and changed my mind.  Darn, they’re good!  The mother-in-law of the owner whispered her picking secrets to me as we trooped toward the field, swinging our baskets:  “Everybody wants big berries.  They’re not as good.  Pick the littlest ones with the deepest color.  They’re the sweetest.  And watch for the rows with the flags, they’re perfectly ripe.”

Hannah subscribed to the “perfect berry” theory – only the most colorful and flawless fruits were plucked for her basket.  What she lacked in volume, she compensated for in symetry.

Took us about an hour to fill almost all of one of the smaller buckets.  Future generations of Joads have nothing to fear from us.  With the variances in our height, we could stay on one row easily.  Some of the bushes were taller than 6’5″ Keith.  Some berries 42″ Julia had to bend over to grasp.  Julia grew tired of picking and starting visiting each of us in rotation to pour our berries into her bucket.

Julia exercised the right of berry pickers everywhere to sample the goods.  Her front teeth are soooo loose - blueberries are something she could eat without fear.

I made a gynormous cobbler with about 2/3 of the berries last night.  And not my usual a few-berries-with-mostly-sliced-applies cobbler, either, no no!  The real thing.  All blueberries with sugar, flour, cinnamon, cornstarch, butter, vanilla and brown sugar.  Baked in my favorite green Jadeite dish.  Topped with vanilla ice cream and served hot.  Julia didn’t think she wanted any until she saw all of us eating it, then she did – and promptly declared it “foosna” (tasty.)

So as you travel around this summer, think about what you might pick up.

It might be berry, berry good, you know?