Blueberries for All



We went blueberry picking at the river last weekend.  I now realize that I've probably riven past thousands of blueberries in my life without even knowing it.  They were right there - just a few feet off the road and way back into the meadow/swamp.  I couldn't see them from the road but as we walked in, they were everywhere!

I had many recipes in mind as we brought our buckets home; blueberry cream cheese crumbly coffee cake, moist bluberry muffins, a blueberry ice cream swirl cake with graham cracker crust...But these little berries were such a perfect combination of sweet and tart, we ate them all, straight up, right out of the bucket.  Remember the childrens' book, Blueberries for Sal by Robert McCloskey?  We read it many, many times when the kids were little.  As I crouched down, reaching for more berries, hearing them kerplunk into my bucket, I couldn't help remembering the small bear we saw in the driveway on the river last fall and that little bear in the story - the one who kept eating berries out of the mother's bucket in the story.  We saw no bears though and came home with lots of berries.