Peak Season

I love raspberries. I love all the other berries too, but red raspberries are my absolute favorite. I think it is more than flavor that tempts me to shell out $3.99 in the middle of winter for a tiny box of raspberries, against all my principles for only buying local produce and in season. It is the memory of hot July days in southern Oregon, crouched in the shade of six-foot high raspberry canes and reaching up to find the biggest, plumpest raspberries that grew hidden under the dark tangle of leaves. I was supposed to be picking berries for the raspberry jam that my Grandmother put up every summer. I doubt that they would’ve been surprised to know that as many raspberries were popped into my mouth as went into the saucepan that lay at my feet. But they might have been surprised to know that an older boy cousin taught me how to French kiss while picking raspberries. Innocent days of childhood… in another time. And now it is July again. Peak season for my favorite berry. On Thursday we drove to LaConner in the rich Skagit Valley farmlands. Along the road were handmade signs advertising freshly picked berries for sale at the Berry Barn. Of course we stopped. We bought a whole flat of mixed berries and a frozen boysenberry pie to take home and bake. The raspberries taste not quite, but almost as good with my granola and yogurt breakfast as they did on those hot summer days in my grandparent’s raspberry patch.

... PLM