Snacking on Blackberry’s in The Santa Cruz Mountains
It’s summer and the tomato crop is now delivering my favorite heirloom tomato, the ‘Pink Belize.’ Firm and pink they taste amazing and are one of the many heirlooms we are growing that you will likely never see in a farmers market. Well, perhaps you have them at your local market, but I have never seen them in all my years of snapping up high priced heirloom tomatoes while living in Bernal Heights. Nope. Never. Now, we get up and wander around the pots filled with tomatoes and pick a solid cluster of summer goods. Purple cherry tomatoes, white cherry tomatoes and the ‘Pink Belize’ seem to be the order of the day today. Birds are chirping and we are walking around finding colorful treasure hidden in the deep green tomato vines. We’ll be eating these for lunch with some balsamic vinegar and olive oil later today. Why am I yammering on about tomatoes when this piece is supposedly about blackberry’s? Well, it is summer and summer in the mountains is all about summer crops. Summer is also about one of the best free crops around. Blackberry bushes are pretty much everywhere. Kind of like poison oak only far more desirable for snacking purposes.
So, we like to walk the dog up a country road not far from the house. It’s a wide and relatively flat road that has country living all over it. There are places with goats and even one yard that’s has a resident cow. There are towering redwoods above and some very, very thick brambles from the blackberry bushes. All winter long we walked past these bushes in the hammering rains, thinking the multitudes of treats that would be available at some distant point in the summer. “Ah, some day…” That time is now.! Walking up the road now there are always sightings of opportunistic blackberry gathering locals. You might see one tucked into a patch of thorny goodness focused on the job at hand. Carefully selecting only the very best and most ripe blackberries. It seems these are sacred moments and semi-private matters, not a good time to shout out and/or bellow a cheery “Good morning!” We respect their privacy and wander further on the road until we find a particularly enticing region of bushes and then dive in…
I look into the bushes and begin the ritual and selection. The smaller ones seem to be the ripest. Perfect. Not a hint of green left on these delicate summer morsels. Nope. Perfect flavor. The bigger ones look good, but they have a bit of a sour tang that seems not quite right to me. I offer a few of the better ones to Dianthe. She is in heaven. There is something perfectly wonderful about growing your own tomatoes. No doubt about it. There is something straight up magical about gathering wild blackberry’s that are happily grown without any assistance… Which of course reminds me that King Boletus and Chanterelle mushrooms season is coming up and there will be more magical treats to be found on our hikes in the forest.
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