I celebrated the recovery of some of my strength by going up to Gloria’s for a morning of blackberrying on Santa Rosa Creek. It’s wonderful to see old friends again after an absence, especially folks like Gloria you’re so comfortable with that you can just totally relax and be yourself, knowing that somehow over the last forty years she’s got used to you as you are.
And vice versa.
As you can see, the vines were laden, and we picked a gallon and a half before we returned to her place for a lunch that had been billed as no-fuss chicken sandwiches but somehow got transmogrified into a five course luncheon: roasted chicken, grits, fresh heirloom tomato and basil salad (both picked to order from her garden), chard/raisin/pinenut stirfry, and a cucumber/yogurt raita-like dish. And then an apple crisp for dessert. Gasp.
I was going to call the grits “polenta” to make them sound sophisticated, but they were really buttered grits, and i wolfed them. Besides, in the trendy culinary world, grits are the new polenta.
So what to do with a gallon and a half of fresh blackberries? Well, this morning i went out to Casa Guadalupe and picked up some apples, Mexican limes, Pasillas, and Jalapeños so that tomorrow Mark can come over and watch/help while i turn ’em into jelly. He’d mentioned a while back wanting to pitch in, and i’ve been looking forward to it.
And I already figured out the name of it: WSRCBBPJAKL (Wild Santa Rosa Creek Blackberry Pasilla Jalapeño Key Lime Jelly). Yes, for the close readers, the “A” in that abbreviated name is for the apple that gets ground up into all the jams and jellies. No tame blackberries in this thing, and yes, i’m calling ’em “Key” limes because the great majority of the supposedly “Key” limes sold in this country are actually Mexican limes and they’re both Citrus aurantifolia.