Blackberry Jammin'

It's a little seedy, but it's pretty gosh darned good. Here is the recipe I used. One proviso--boiling jam=napalm. Ouch!

But more philosophically....

As I was squishing and trying to remove the larger seeds from my blackberries, I started thinking about my grandmother. When she was growing up canning and preserving weren't things that slightly eccentric people with gardens did for fun; they were things everyone did out of necessity. And it makes me smile because--even though she's still very frugal to this day, and even though I know she did lots of it in her younger days--in my 25 years of life, I don't ever remember her preserving anything. In fact, if you even mention it to her, her smile gets very strained.

Yet, aside from the blackberry napalm, I found it to be almost meditative. Making a trip to the blackberry patch; enjoying the smells, tastes, and the cool juice on my hands as I mashed the berries; tucking away the beautiful, jewel-toned jars in my pantry.

Why is it that the exact same task can become infinitely more fun when you're doing it because you want to, instead of because you have to?