I know, I know, I probably sound all kinds of nerdy saying that my favorite thing to do in the summer is to go out and pick berries, and not say, hit the beach, catch a summer concert, or eat outdoors. But it’ okay, because I already know I’m a nerd when it comes to this kind of stuff… picking berries, making jam, cooking with new ingredients. For me, berry picking is calming, and meditative, while also being back breaking, sweat inducing, and greed generating. Ha!

Berry picking requires concentration and focus, as the search for the perfect, most ripe and beautiful unblemished fruit is never ending. Even when your baskets are full and you’re walking out of the field, you (or at least I do anyway) stop every 2 feet to keep picking. For me, it often becomes less of “oh, this fruit is so yummy, I’m going to go home and make 1 billion jars of jam” and more of “I’m going to pick more than you!!” A weird competitiveness, not really found anywhere else in my life, floods my whole being, and fuels the intensity with which I pick fruit. I’m an excellent berry picker (if I say so myself) and am full of boastful pride when I see I’ve picked more than my companion.

It dawned on me recently that this strange and out of place urgency and competitiveness likely stems from some deeply ingrained impulse going back to our hunter/gatherer days. At a time when food preservation didn’t exist, and we ate what we found or killed, collecting as much as we could carry, and sometimes more, was a way to ensure our survival. We were never sure when out next meal would be caught, or foraged, so when we found a good source of food, we basically picked for our lives. This point was hammered home for me when I was climbing a ladder, legs weak from a long run at the gym, to reach the best mulberries on the highest branches of the tree out back. I don’t even really LIKE mulberries that much… it was just that they were there, they were ripe, and they needed picking!

I build my summer weekends around which fruits are in season, what’s open for picking, and how far the farms are. Two weekends ago I picked strawberries with my dad on Father’s Day, and then picked some wild black raspberries from his back yard. This past weekend I picked blueberries and blackcurrants and next weekend hopefully more of the same with raspberries too. I love this stuff.

Its beautiful to be outside, in the quiet fields, with a friend or two, calmly and peacefully plucking sweet ripe fruits. Of course we eat as we pick (these are all organic orchards by the way… important to do your homework!), the best berries being the ones that have warmed in the sun. My arms usually get scratched up from the brambles, but it’s a labor of love so I ignore them. In my work with clients, I often spend a little time talking to people about spirituality – not in the religious sense necessarily (unless that’s their bend) but in a more basic, fundamental sense. I consider anything that really and truly lifts your spirit to be a spiritual experience, and without sounding corny or cheesy, that’s what berry picking is for me. Nature would be my “church” and my place of reverence, and is something that calms, relaxes, and recharges my body and mind (unless it’s been pretty vigorous berry picking… then my body is beat!!).

And the best part about all of it is, after all the hard work, the reflection, and the meditative act of picking fruit, is going home to make something special with them! Jams are the best, and easiest way to capture and prolong all the great feelings of summer and the outdoors in little pots to enjoy all year. This year is my first time picking blackcurrants (they are HORRIBLE tasting right off the bush, and like rhubarb, require a lot of sugar), and currently have them sitting in a jar of vodka, on their way to becoming Creme de Cassis, a blackcurrant liqueur. It will take 4-5 months before it’s really ready, but when it does, it will be summer, literally, in a bottle.