Blackberry Cobbler

I love blackberry cobbler.  My grandma made it, my mama made it, and I love it.  It’s hard to beat a deep dish blackberry cobbler served with homemade vanilla ice cream!

When I was growing up, there was a price to pay for blackberry cobbler.  I had to help pick the blackberries.  I remember going up on the mountain in Scottsboro, Alabama with my dad and grandpa to pick blackberries in the summer heat.  Since the berries grew among the thorns, I had to wear jeans and a long sleeved shirt when we went picking.  It was hot, and I had to reach through the thorns to get to the juicy blackberries.  We also had to watch out for snakes.  They lived in the shade of the vines, protected by the thorns.  It seemed like we would pick for hours before my dad and grandpa decided we had picked enough.  I hated picking blackberries, but that was the only way I could get the delicious dessert.  So I endured the summer heat and the thorns, and picked berries.

Several years after we moved to Marietta, Cheri discovered a family farm that was nestled in the midst of the suburbia in which we lived.  This farm had a sign by the road advertising blackberries that were ready for picking.  When Cheri told me she wanted us to get some, I wanted no part of it.  The memories of the thorns and the intense summer heat came flowing to the surface, and I just didn’t want them that badly.  But she convinced me, and we went to the farm with our boys to pick blackberries. 

When we walked out to the field, I felt like I had gone to heaven!  This farm had neat rows of blackberry bushes with huge, sweet blackberries, and no thorns.  We got busy and picked a crateful of blackberries in no time.  Then the farmer’s wife gave Cheri a recipe for the most delicious blackberry pie I’ve ever tasted.  Now she makes blackberry pies throughout the summer, and her pie has replaced blackberry cobbler as my favorite dessert.

The farm was sold a few years ago, and the blackberries are not as abundantly available as they used to be.  But as long as we can get them, we’re going to have blackberry pie and ice cream.  Come on summer!