August 18, 2019
Late August is blackberry season in Washington. Blackberries are the most pernicious weed in the area, taking over just about any untended patch of earth with their crawling vines and their evil, evil thorns. The best way to strike fear into the heart of a Northwest homeowner is to look at their yard and mention that you see some blackberries coming in. They require a lot of work and a lot of pain to contain (you can never defeat them). Blackberries are an evolutionary mystery: they developed these savage thorns which essentially tell any other living thing to stay as far away as possible, yet they also developed delicious berries that tell other living things to please approach and carry the seeds away.
The good news is that once Matt decided that this would be the week of the blackberry pie, it meant it would be the cheapest pie of the year. Blackberries are free. They are everywhere. Just park your car on the side of just about any road in our neighborhood and you can fill up a bucket with a pie’s worth of blackberries. The bad news is that you have to pay for them in blood. Matt and Shelly chose a thick patch of blackberries on the side of our church parking lot and got more than enough for a pie in 20 minutes of picking. But it was 20 minutes of both of us screaming, “Ow!” and “Just a little closer…” and “Augghh!” Pro tip: when going blackberry picking, wear long pants, gloves, and bring a stick to move the vines around.
The pie? Oh, the pie was fantastic. We used a recipe that called for sour cream, which made it creamier, and Matt tried out a weird decorative lattice, but the blackberries, bless their sadistic little souls, are the stars of the show.
The Pie Project 