I have a flash memory of picking blackberries in the backyard garden with my maternal grandfather, Poppy. I remember his thick olive-colored hands reaching into the crosshairs of the thick green bush to show me where they grew, clumped together like families.
My view was that of a child, looking up at his profile, looking into the bush, blue sky behind his head. “Then you pick them off just like this,” he said, pulling one from the vine. The lobulated fruit, somewhere between black and purple, rested in his hand. I took it and the tart juice filled my mouth as my teeth worked out the crunch of the seeds.
Coming in from the backyard, the house smelled like a bakery as my grandmother, Baba, made her homemade rolls. My sisters and I would help her roll out the dough, and she would sneak us little bites of raw dough to eat as we helped her make them, kitchen chairs pulled up to the counter so we could reach. The dough would rise on the countertop all afternoon.
Hours later, we sat at the dining room table. The 1970s floral tablecloth provided the foundation for the meals on our annual visit to their home in East Texas. “What a beautiful meal,” Poppy would say. “Did you ever see anything like it?”
My two sisters and I lined up like a staircase on one side of the table, my parents on the other. “Would you look at those three girls?” I remember him asking my grandmother, Baba. “Have you ever seen anything so sweet in your life?”
We could’ve passed anything around the table after the family prayer. Maybe it was vegetables. There could’ve been chicken or ham. Perhaps there was a salad. I don’t remember anything but the rolls and the blackberry jam.
I remember Baba’s hand as it passed her prized possession — the dinner rolls she had made from scratch. Her wedding ring on the fourth finger. Her nails always painted. I never once saw her naked nails.
Sitting down together, we were family. My sisters and I were still children, only seedlings of the people we would become over the next thirty years.
The fresh blackberries picked by Poppy’s hands became blackberry jam, homemade and canned by Baba’s hands. Though the house was simple, the blackberry jam was always passed around the table in a small crystal bowl, as if we were fancy.
We weren’t fancy. We were just us. And now, looking back, I know that we were enough. I just wish we had more time. There were so many questions I didn’t get to ask — about the blackberries and the rolls. And so much more.
JULIE! This is so wonderful. Thank you for sharing. You had me at "I remember his thick olive-colored hands reaching into the crosshairs of the thick green bush to show me where they grew, clumped together like families." So many gorgeous lines in this and now I want blackberries.
Fantastic prompts, Laurel! I really enjoyed this. Thanks. I'd love to share what the one I chose produced:
He grinned, hand hovering over the linen napkin. It was the first time I’d seen him shy, awaiting my lead. But I’d never cracked crab legs open either, had little idea what the doll’s fork and engraved silver Nutcracker were meant for. I held his gaze across plates of oversized sea insects, the fertile dewiness of melted butter sliding seductively up our nostrils. When I quipped that we’d figure out how to get to the meat together, relief brushed the boyish gleam back into to his hazel eyes.
His mug of beer clinked against my short-stemmed Chardonnay glass. I sipped and shuddered, my mouth still learning to appreciate the brightness cracking at the back of my jaw.
“I’m alive,” he teased, making a claw open and shut in my direction. And we cascaded in laughter, followed by a second waterfall when we noticed stiff glances from fellow patrons, who weren't dropping half a month’s food budget on a single night.
The improvement of our methods of rescuing sweet meat from shells broken like smashed ceramic matched the glistening of our fingers and chins. "Here," he'd say, triumphant when a leg came out mostly intact. I'd plop the sultry plumpness on my tongue and close my eyes in pleasure.
He wasn’t my first boyfriend. But he was the first I'd considered spending my life with. And he was the first person I listened to when he asked, gingerly, maybe a year and a half after the crab dinner, swallowing hard and then raising his head to meet my gaze, Did I think, maybe, I had more in common with the man who would eventually become my husband?
HOLLY! This is fabulous. "the doll’s fork and engraved silver Nutcracker" UHF. Also "He wasn’t my first boyfriend. But he was the first I'd considered spending my life with." This is the beginning of a romance that I want the next installment of.
Thanks for this prompt! I loved this memory.
Blackberry Jam
2024-01-21
Julie Miley Schlegel
I have a flash memory of picking blackberries in the backyard garden with my maternal grandfather, Poppy. I remember his thick olive-colored hands reaching into the crosshairs of the thick green bush to show me where they grew, clumped together like families.
My view was that of a child, looking up at his profile, looking into the bush, blue sky behind his head. “Then you pick them off just like this,” he said, pulling one from the vine. The lobulated fruit, somewhere between black and purple, rested in his hand. I took it and the tart juice filled my mouth as my teeth worked out the crunch of the seeds.
Coming in from the backyard, the house smelled like a bakery as my grandmother, Baba, made her homemade rolls. My sisters and I would help her roll out the dough, and she would sneak us little bites of raw dough to eat as we helped her make them, kitchen chairs pulled up to the counter so we could reach. The dough would rise on the countertop all afternoon.
Hours later, we sat at the dining room table. The 1970s floral tablecloth provided the foundation for the meals on our annual visit to their home in East Texas. “What a beautiful meal,” Poppy would say. “Did you ever see anything like it?”
My two sisters and I lined up like a staircase on one side of the table, my parents on the other. “Would you look at those three girls?” I remember him asking my grandmother, Baba. “Have you ever seen anything so sweet in your life?”
We could’ve passed anything around the table after the family prayer. Maybe it was vegetables. There could’ve been chicken or ham. Perhaps there was a salad. I don’t remember anything but the rolls and the blackberry jam.
I remember Baba’s hand as it passed her prized possession — the dinner rolls she had made from scratch. Her wedding ring on the fourth finger. Her nails always painted. I never once saw her naked nails.
Sitting down together, we were family. My sisters and I were still children, only seedlings of the people we would become over the next thirty years.
The fresh blackberries picked by Poppy’s hands became blackberry jam, homemade and canned by Baba’s hands. Though the house was simple, the blackberry jam was always passed around the table in a small crystal bowl, as if we were fancy.
We weren’t fancy. We were just us. And now, looking back, I know that we were enough. I just wish we had more time. There were so many questions I didn’t get to ask — about the blackberries and the rolls. And so much more.
JULIE! This is so wonderful. Thank you for sharing. You had me at "I remember his thick olive-colored hands reaching into the crosshairs of the thick green bush to show me where they grew, clumped together like families." So many gorgeous lines in this and now I want blackberries.
Fantastic prompts, Laurel! I really enjoyed this. Thanks. I'd love to share what the one I chose produced:
He grinned, hand hovering over the linen napkin. It was the first time I’d seen him shy, awaiting my lead. But I’d never cracked crab legs open either, had little idea what the doll’s fork and engraved silver Nutcracker were meant for. I held his gaze across plates of oversized sea insects, the fertile dewiness of melted butter sliding seductively up our nostrils. When I quipped that we’d figure out how to get to the meat together, relief brushed the boyish gleam back into to his hazel eyes.
His mug of beer clinked against my short-stemmed Chardonnay glass. I sipped and shuddered, my mouth still learning to appreciate the brightness cracking at the back of my jaw.
“I’m alive,” he teased, making a claw open and shut in my direction. And we cascaded in laughter, followed by a second waterfall when we noticed stiff glances from fellow patrons, who weren't dropping half a month’s food budget on a single night.
The improvement of our methods of rescuing sweet meat from shells broken like smashed ceramic matched the glistening of our fingers and chins. "Here," he'd say, triumphant when a leg came out mostly intact. I'd plop the sultry plumpness on my tongue and close my eyes in pleasure.
He wasn’t my first boyfriend. But he was the first I'd considered spending my life with. And he was the first person I listened to when he asked, gingerly, maybe a year and a half after the crab dinner, swallowing hard and then raising his head to meet my gaze, Did I think, maybe, I had more in common with the man who would eventually become my husband?
HOLLY! This is fabulous. "the doll’s fork and engraved silver Nutcracker" UHF. Also "He wasn’t my first boyfriend. But he was the first I'd considered spending my life with." This is the beginning of a romance that I want the next installment of.
Thanks, Laurel! As a fan of your work, I appreciate the compliment much.
I just love the Bon Appetit essay, Laurel. Congrats. And thanks for sharing it, and the recipe, which I am making this weekend! --Vivé
Oh how wonderful. Let me know how it goes!!!
Thank you, as I'll stay tuned. Do you have a podcast, please?
Christopher Springmann
chris@onthepathproductions.com