August 10, 2025
In my neighborhood, blackberry season is impossible to miss. Here, I’m surrounded by forest and back lanes that are thick with brambles. The berries are incredibly plentiful and, for me, deeply nostalgic.
Every time I go picking, I think of my grandmother’s house in Placerville, California. Summers there were blisteringly hot, and as kids, we had just two places to escape the heat: behind her enormous propane tank or in the crawl space under her house. The crawl space was my favorite. It was cool, shadowy and magical. Best of all, it was where she stored her home-canned fruit and pickles. I remember sitting there with my brother, mesmerized by the rows of glistening jars, the bounty of summer preserved in syrup and brine. We would be allowed a quart to take home, and so he and I negotiated which it would be this time.
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