These summer days have felt so long with my Spanish class. But now I can say I’m officially done as I went to pick up my report card today. This leaves me with only three more weeks to enjoy the break and sunshine before going back to school again.

The previous summers, my brother and I were always enticed by the free juicy blackberries hanging in the prickly bushes alongside a sparsely used road next to our house. We would always go with a large container in each hand and pick blackberries until the containers were overloading and our fingers stained purple. There were times where we would turn the blackberry-picking into a mission, seeing who could get past the thorns and reach into the deepest places and pick the most blackberries. I usually won :). We were always disappointed though, because the biggest and shiniest blackberries would be just out of our reach, no matter how much effort we put into our jumping and stretching.

But it was fun all the same, even if we couldn’t pick the best ones, because when we got back home, we would bake a sweet juicy blackberry pie and stare at it longingly just until dinner time was over and we would have the permission to cut the pie.

This year my brother seems to be in the lazy stage, so I had to go pick the blackberries myself. And wash them myself too. Which is how I discovered the disgusting little larvae (the early phase of fruit flies) crawling all over. Ugh. I’m still shuddering from the memory. Thankfully, after a salt bath and many rinses, my blackberries seemed good to go! (There might have been a few stubborn larvae in the pie, but they’re not harmful and they were cooked so I let them be.)

Warning: this is just a healthier version of blackberry pie, but that doesn’t mean eating three slices in the same day is healthy! The pie is so delicious and the buttery crust is super flaky. And let’s not forget about the sweet juicy blackberries.