On the Picking of Bramble Berries

It isn't proper berry picking unless there is a plastic bucket. That's true of almost any wild berry, not just brambly ones. The one my grandparents had I remember being a bright, glossy blue plastic garden bucket with a white plastic handle. These days I settle for a cheap white painter's bucket from the hardware store, the small kind with a wire handle. Mostly you want something lightweight that's easy to rinse out later.

When picking blackberries, always remember to look behind, and under, and back the way you came. The best berries hide. There's probably a sensible explanation about how the visible ones get picked off first by birds and so on, but I say they hide.

Late September is very late in Washington for still finding good berries. We've been lucky in a gloriously sunny and dry fall, or I wouldn't be seeing much besides mummified or moldy husks by now.

Someday modern chemistry and fabric technology will manage to invent a garment that resists blackberry thorns, and future generations will not return from berry picking feeling like scarred veterans of battle, but in the meantime, the striking thing about a really good bramble bite isn't how much it hurts, but for how long. It's an itchy sort of pain that lasts, and lasts -- a bit like a faint wasp sting. So even if you spend no money, there's no such thing as a free blackberry. Blood or gold, you always pay.

Still, there are things to be grateful for. It's not too warm for long sleeves, which help, and at this time of day there aren't any mosquitoes to speak of. Mosquitoes are usually the bane of berry picking, since a sudden move to slap one will only land you an armful of snags and scratches. I didn't see any spiders, either, which is nothing short of miraculous. And I have long since learned that picking bramble berries does not in any way mix with walking a busy agenda dog who has places to be. So no dog companion, and so no need to swear when she suddenly begins dragging on the leasj just as I have managed to thread my hand into a particularly thorny tangle for that one huge, glossy, perfect berry. Besides, Sarah's gone.

It's an annual rite, of sorts: the scratches, the purple madder-stained fingers, the bucket, the late sun turning the leaves overhead into a dark lace silhouette traceries. Wild flowers in spring, berries in fall, leaves that change color, the white flash of sunlight on water -- these are the things that connect me to a long-flown childhood in another country. It isn't exactly home, here, not childhome, but it will do.

And now, to make a pie, which was what prompted all this berry picking nonsense in the first place. Blame it on Agent K.

A Kitchen Gadget Meme

Picked up from malkingrey. Bold the ones you have and use at least once a year, italicize the ones you have and don't use, strike through the ones you have had but got rid of. As suggested by both of them, there are additions.

I wonder how many pasta machines (1), breadmakers, juicers, blenders, deep fat fryers, egg boilers, melon ballers, sandwich makers, pastry brushes, cheese knives, electric woks, miniature salad spinners, griddle pans, jam funnels, meat thermometers, filleting knives, egg poachers, cake stands, garlic crushers, martini glasses, tea strainers, bamboo steamers, pizza stones, coffee grinders, milk frothers, piping bags, banana stands, fluted pastry wheels, tagine dishes, conical strainers, rice cookers, steam cookers, pressure cookers, slow cookers, spaetzle makers, cookie presses, gravy strainers, double boilers (bains marie), sukiyaki stoves, ice cream makers, fondue sets, healthy-grills, home smokers, tempura sets, tortilla presses, electric whisks (2), cherry stoners, sugar thermometers, food processors, bacon presses, mouli mills, cake testers, ETA: hand crank meat slicers, mechanical egg beaters, canning tongs, flour sifters, canning/lobster pots, shaped loaf baking tubes, magnetic knife blocks or French balloon whisks languish dustily at the back of the nation's cupboards.

(1) I plead special circumstances for the pasta machine -- I bought it as a tool for polymer clay, and it's never been used for anything else. I just haven't gotten around to getting the re-wiring and stuff down at the downstairs workbench to make clay and jewelry work plausible, so all the tools are languishing.

(2) The electric whisk / immersion blender would get more use if the accessories could be successfully re-united with the body. I did finally get rid of the old power unit whose accessories went AWOL with a box of miscellaneous stuff taken from the consuite at a Loscon years ago. I once had visions of getting a replacement set of bits from Braun, but let it go far too long and they've since redesigned the model. Indeed the "new" one is also a Braun.

There are also some gadgets I don't have and wish I did. I keep meaning to get a pie bird or two, against the year when I actually manage to spray the apple trees with neem oil and get a less wormy crop, fit for pies. I'd really like to have decent meat and candy thermometers, especially the latter to continue wrestling with the problem of proper fudge without the marshmallow cream cheat. Most of the gadgets I do have but seldom use are pretty small ones that aren't a big storage nightmare. The conical strainer is admittedly a pain, but I'm not sure what I'd replace it with for the filtering stage of making cordial. The milk frother is part of a coffee/espresso maker combo that we truly never use and currently lurks in the basement. That I really should sell or donate to someone who might actually use it, wedding present or not. The Foreman grill could probably just go, as well.

ETA: I also have a stone mortar I don't use because the pestle has gone walkabout. I wish it were possible to buy stand-alone pestles, because I don't need another mortar, but it would be nice to have a mortar and pestle for grinding spices. I also want to get me one of those fancy microplane graters for ginger and hard cheeses, which would probably also give me the impetus to finally wall mount one of the magnetic knife strips. And I miss having a flour sifter, but mine self-destructed and I haven't found one that isn't huge to replace it.