MindSpinner

I first grew Illini Blackberries years ago, accepting, when I ordered the plants from Miller Nurseries, the recommendation of the woman I spoke to on the phone. Today, as I reached gingerly through thorny briars for berries the size of a man’s thumb, catching my shirt here, getting stuck there, and occasionally squealing because I’d impaled a finger, I thought wistfully of Chester Thornfree and other thornless varieties. I questioned whether eating berries with “wild blackberry flavor” is really worth being covered with little scratches.

Though the berries are just now getting ripe and there will be many, many more to pick next week, we had enough for a cobbler. I’ve just eaten a small bowlful, hot from the oven, and I’d just like to say, as I savor the last tart-sweet, intensely blackberry bite, that the woman on the phone was a genius, and the thorns ever so worth it.