A More Sophisticated Berry

What to do with five lbs of blackberries. This is something I am going to ponder this afternoon. After all, being unemployed leaves ample time for exploring such questions.
On Tuesday, Jamie took me to a special place where he partakes in his archaic boy sports, to enjoy a sport more familiar to me.... berry picking. Admittedly I have not been berry picking for some two years now. Allow me to recall my last experience for you on a brief tangent...
Strawberry Tangent:
June 2006- Our second summer in Vermont, living near the hippie lovin', organic produce filled, Intervale. A former waste site now converted to lush organic farmland. As a supply source to the overpriced healthy food stores that many of us patronize, we Burlingtonites (sounds good to me) admire the Intervale as a source of all that is good and sacred in the world of produce. It was a wonderfully hot day. Seventy nine and humid. My idea of the ideal day to kneel in a field of straw and bake my skin while indulging on my favorite berries... strawberries! I worked on a strawberry farm for several years of my youth. Naturally strawberries now hold a special place in my heart as a catalyst to both my love of fresh foods and my workaholic sensibilities.
I hopped into my honda, dropped the windows and headed for the dirt roads of the Intervale. The big red wooden berry was posted at the entrance, and I knew it was a matter of time before my cheeks were full of that juicy red flesh that I craved every June. We had a particularly wet spring and it felt good to be outside.
I rounded the bend into the farm and was surprised to see no pickers anywhere. No cars, no straw hats bobbing through the field. Just me. Humm "More for me" I thought. I barreled forward in my Accord, through the tractor ruts to get a better view. "There he is.. there is Adam", comfort came to me as I knew Adam would hook me up with a few good rows and allow me to get my berry fill. I hopped out of my car and went to see what the farm's owner had to say about this year's crop.
Adam is a particularly neat guy, whom many of us local foodies have come to admire. He left his corporate, salaried job for one of value in the fields of the Intervale. Growing and serving up a myriad of organic berries for the whole community to enjoy. His farm, with it's neatly planted rows has a whole slew of strawberry varietals. Every few rows a new berry with its own unique color shape and flavor presents itself. The Starbucks of strawberries, really. Well at least to me...
I briskly walked toward the straw hat, bent in the field, swatting the mosquitoes as they awoke from their swampy nests on the ground below me. Adam wasn’t as cheery as I had remembered from the year before. He recounted the floods that had occurred in the previous months in this part of town and the hardship his plants endured under the abundance of water. "A week or so.." he said, "we are going to have a short season this year" Disappointed, I headed back to my car, to find another way to spend my afternoon.
No sooner than when I put my foot on the gas did I realize that I was stuck in the mud! I mean stuck. I rocked the car forward and shot it in reverse. I spun my tires and listened as the thick mud spattered onto the body of the car. Back - forth, back - forth. SHIT. Now what? Adam and a couple of wholesale pickers emerged from the fields willing to help me in my ridiculous situation. They lined up in back and I revved the engine, hot smoke emerging from the hood as mud splattered all over them. One hippie guy with a beehive of dreads piled on top of his head slipped in the thick slick behind the car. Watching in my rear view mirrors as their kind hearted eyes gave way to irritation and anger, I began to notice my new and uninvited passengers.
Attracted to the car's heat? Did I put on perfume that morning? Was my car on top of the mother ship colony? To this day, I have no idea. Thousands of mosquitoes had entered my car in a relentless vicious swarm. They were attacking me by the hundreds. Plotting to suck every last drip of blood, from my body. I could not take my foot off of the gas to focus on the downed windows for fear of landing all of my farmer friends in the mud. Being attacked over every square inch of revealed flesh on my body, I stomped on the gas in one last attempt at freedom.
Adam and his helpers managed to not fall into the sea of mud as my car lunged forward onto the dirt road ahead. They stood there, exasperated in my rear view, covered in mud from head to foot. Clearly in no shape to return to the fields, I, with the swarm still in tow, threw a hand of appreciation out the window and proceeded to collect a few hundred more bites as I proceeded at an unsafe speed up the pot hole filled road toward civilization.
I have never been bit by so many mosquitoes in my life, and do not care to revisit the experience ever again. The agonizing irritation of those itchy little bites will forever live in my memory. I never did eat fresh berries in a field that year. I always felt bad for the buckets of mud coating Adam and his staff as I left the farm that day. Good thing I drive a different car, and a few years have gone by. I am sure that he will not remember me come next year. Perhaps this is why I have taken so long to relive my youth, eating fresh berries in the fields, right when they are at their very best.
I have now decided that blackberries are my adult berry of passion. Complex in flavor and surprisingly expensive in most markets, they are a challenging berry to get to know. We found our plot growing deep in the woods along a hunting trail. Who knows how they got there, but there sure are a lot. The bushes were heavily laden with little black gems just waiting to be eaten. Jamie and I picked and picked, eating along the way. Our little dog Finnegan managed to pluck them off of the bushes, his bushy beard protecting him from the thorny stems. In a about an hour and a half we picked about five quarts of black berries. For those of you who are not avid blackberry pickers, I would say that this is a lot for the time spent. I was astonished at how many berries were ripe on each bush, especially for a situation where they were completely exposed for deer, bear and birds to nibble at leisure. "Oh boy, I thought.... I cant wait to make something wonderful from these berries..." yum yum yum....
Now, I sit hear at home and wonder just what to do with them. Other berries are more common in the North East and typically I would know just what to make- Strawberries, make shortcake- Raspberries, make a tart - Blueberries with ice cream. Black berries are not as sweet as other berries in my opinion. They also have a more seedy quality. I find these to be a bit more bitter than a raspberry, with the earthiness of a blueberry. Hum.... Blackberry jam is an option, but we just moved into the house and my canning implements are strewn about the entire basement. Finding everything that I would need would have taken me the whole time it took to write this. Then you wouldn’t have gotten to have read my wonderful story, and that would be a shame. So now I need something else.... hummm... Something with blackberries and basil? We have lots of basil. Would that be good? I do not know. I am off to the kitchen and garden to find out. I will get back to you with the results.
PS I know you are all very mad at me right now, as you are on the edge of your seats in anticipation, but you will just have to wait.