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Hardly strictly blackberry

Blackberries have a special place in my heart. They grow like a weed all over Northern California. I discovered this when I attended summer camp in the Santa Cruz mountains. We ate the berries all summer long, getting scratches on our arms and legs as we carefully swam through the thorny vines to pick the ripest berries. And that's why I can spot poison oak leaves from a mile away, because the vines are often intertwined with blackberries. To this day I have never gotten poison oak, knock on wood.

On our camp-out nights we'd fill five-pound coffee cans with blackberries and make pies or crumbles in a dutch oven buried in glowing coals. Nothing really compares to that kind of cooking.

This summer I decided I'd try to capture some of that tart juicy-black sweetness in a jar. But I never got around to visiting the local blackberry farms. And I certainly never tried to pick the berries myself. They are all over Golden Gate Park and the Presidio -- seriously, everywhere -- but the easily accessible ones are picked early and I'm not enough of a martyr to go swimming in brambles these days.

Then my hair stylist introduced me to the Serramonte farmers market in September. Serramonte in my mind was, uh, a sort of sad, downscale shopping mall. It's just south of San Francisco, and I hadn't been there in probably about eight years. But they have a farmers market in the parking lot and I quickly learned that it's fantastic. It's just as good as the fancy markets in SF, but cheaper, smaller (and thus easier to navigate), and way less crowded. The first time I went I zeroed in on the blackberries.

I was already a little late for blackberry season, but the berry vendors were still selling a few boxes here and there. I bought six cartons, took them home and set about crushing them with my frijole masher. But, ack, I didn't end up with quite enough pulp and juice for a batch of jam! My recipe had some flexibilty on ingredients so I ran down to my local produce market with my purple-stained hands and bought some raspberries. They didn't have any blackberries.

Thus my Mostly Blackberry Jam was born. It's pretty damn good. I actually think the hint of raspberry adds some lovely balance and mystery to the flavor.

I didn't make many jars, though. Next summer you can bet I'll be all over it like poison oak on a fallen redwood trunk.

November 7, 2008 11:27 PM