blackberry tai chi

Today’s harvest.

Isn’t that pretty? Mostly the patch looks like this:

Lots of red berries. But there are enough black blackberries to get us out there every morning. And evening. We’ll be swamped in another week or so, but the flow at the moment, is juuuuuust right.

Always there is the Law of Picking: don’t fight the patch. Push, shove, get greedy, go right ahead, and watch the patch win every time. Not only will I get scratched, stuck, and require embarassing emergency extraction, I don’t get the berry.

Blackberry tai chi, however, is like Catherine Zeta-Jones doing her moves in that Sean Connery movie where she has to get through all the lasers in the bank vault without triggering the alarm. Only when she does it in her black cat suit, it’s a big turn on…and when I do it, it’s like Cirque de Soleil–when the clowns come out. And if the clowns kept swearing and saying “ouch! ouch! Ooo, look at that one over there….”

But enough of that. Now, I will share with you the secret of my cobbler-fu.

We express the Perfection of Cobbler in such an elegant ratio as this 1:1:1:1

That is, 1 stick of butter, 1 cup of flour, 1 cup of sugar, and 1 cup of milk. And 2 tsp of baking powder, which isn’t a 1, but work with me here.

Put the stick of butter in the pan and put the pan in the oven while the oven is preheating. While you wait for the butter to melt, whisk the dry bits together. When the butter is melted, pour the milk into the dry bits. DON”T MIX. Pour all of that into the hot pan with the butter. STILL DON”T MIX. You’ll want to mix, believe me, but you must resist. Cover the unmixed stuff with 4 or 5 cups of blackberries, and bake at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes. That’s it. It’s awesome. The picture above is a half recipe, which is plenty for the four of us. Cut back on the sugar if you like it more tart. Serve with a glass of fresh goat milk for a fantastic breakfast. Serve a la mode for instant ascension to nirvana.