Blackberry Ramble

When it's hot like it has been, you can smell the blackberries from the kitchen door.      

Anyone will tell you that blackberries are the scourge of the northwest...except when it's berry picking time.  Then we all sing a different tune. There's a little corner behind our house that is taken over by bramble that offers up the most choice berries every summer.  It can be tricky getting in there to pick them.  Even dangerous.  There's always that persistent poison oak entwined amongst the thorny vines to be wary of.  But still we forge on until we are scratched bloody and stained with juice, triumphant with our bounty as we return to the house with baskets brimming.    At that point, it always feels like we've just won a battle.  I guess in a way we have.  Survived one anyway.   We try not to eat all the spoils but it's so hard.  I insist on a triple rinse, and it's a bit of a production that takes time.  While the girls do that,  I get the pie crusts ready.  We ended up with two pies; one for dessert and one for the freezer, for later.  Much later.  Like when we've been chased back inside by the cold and want to taste summer again.  Or have company over for an old fashioned Sunday supper and want to spoil them with something special.  Pies are such homey little things.  Especially one wearing a fancy lattice crust hat.  My little pastry wheel makes these lovely pinked edges without much effort.  Some strips were a bit thin as I was running short on pie dough.  But in the end, it didn't really matter one bit.  No one even noticed or cared when it finally came out of the oven and the aroma hit them.   

Comments

[Shula]

That is the most delicious looking blackberry tart I have EVER seen. I bow to you in reverence.

[thebizofknowledge]

I stumbled across your blog while I was in the process of doing some online research. As someone who has never had the pleasure of picking fresh blackberries, I envy you the experience, brambles and all!

[Pam Kellogg]

Vicki, I so much wish I could reach into the monitor and taste that beautiful pie!

I still can't get over your daily posts. It's like looking through a lovely women's magazine but without all the advertisments. I look forward to reading your blog every day!

[Alicia A.]

Beautiful. I bet it tasted as good as it looks too!

[clarice]

I agree I love standing in my yard and you can smell the blackberries !!! Clarice

[joanna]

Yum, yum, yum!! We also suffer the scourge of the blackberry brambles during the summer months, and then when the end of August/beginning of September rolls around we, too, are singing a different tune. They are nearly ready here - not sure how bountiful the harvest is going to be this year as the weather has been very mixed, but if I can gather enough to make just one pie as scrummy-looking as yours, I will be very pleased :)

[Mama Urchin]

Mmmm, you can also smell the blackberries through the computer screen too.

[Britt-Arnhild]

I also made a pie with berries from the garden yesterday. It doesn't look as artistic as your though :-) (photo in my blog)

[beki]

Mmmmmm, my mouth is watering!

[Morgan]

The pie looks delicious!!

[Lauren]

That pie looks delish! Yum, Yum.

[paula]

Oh my goodness...I've got to get out picking!!

[Mrs. Staggs]

There's just something about the smell of blackberries that says "summer" to me. I think they may be my favorite berry.
Your pies are beautiful Vicki...and
I think I can smell them all the way up here!

[ana]

Blackberry picking straight from the hedge, how wonderful. That takes me back to when I was a child and you could stop by the road and pick all sorts of berries and eat them and make yourself well and truly sick!! Beautiful looking pie ,I think I can smell it from here!!

[Kathy]

The photos on your site are awesome! I'm inspired to cook more deserts from this week's posts! I have never seen a home made pie with such a beautiful crust before in my life! You've reminded me that the creative arts definitely lend themselves to artisan food as well. Have you seen the blog "Gifty"? I thought people who visit here might enjoy this one too! http://www.gifty.thepaperprincess.com/
Keep up the great work, this is truly a fabulous blog site!

[prairie mouse]

vicki,
now when you post pictures of food i have to look carefully to see whether they are real or one of grace's beautiful teeny creations! we are almost through the blackberries we picked last summer here. the best thing i did was to make jelly out of them - divine!

[Fran]

It's a story-book pie! So sweet.

[tinker]

What delicious pies, Vicki! I could almost taste the blackberries just looking at them.
We have a very small blackberry patch - they don't do quite as well here as they do in your area, and they come on much earlier. I only managed to pick a couple of handfuls this summer and nothing left of them now :(
Wishing I'd persevered in my picking and wisely frozen some for later, as you did. Now I'm feeling a bit like the grasshopper in Aesop's fable!

[tongue in cheek]

I am licking the screen without icecream, that is a first!

[Tammy]

I love your blog & had to jump out of lurkdome here... we just discovered blackberries in the woods here & I live in the Northeast.... you have such great willpower! Our berries were gone before dinnertime.

[Barbara Clark]

Oh, your blackberry pie is much pretter than the two I made this month!!! My neighbor and I share blackberry run a muk!!!
I have at least a cup of blackberries on my cereal every day.
My dtr and sil also have blackberries and made a huge batch of jam.
May I reccomend the book Jamberry by Bruce Degan to all mothers (and fathers) of little ones!!! All about berries!!!!
I don't know why we have such a tremendous crop!!! Must have something to do with pruning. This spring we cut them way back trying to get rid of them. They came back with a vengence!
Barbara (Nevada)

[weirdbunny]

I love blackberries they are my favourite fruit. We let a wild blackberrie bush grow outside the back door. It just appered last year and we let it grow, to the horror of our friends. But who would get rid of free fruit right outside your back door. I have to admit though it's starting to take hold of the flower border too !!!