| Making pie can be thorny ordeal |
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| Opinion | |||
| Written by Jean Carder | |||
| Wednesday, 24 June 2009 08:00 | |||
Most parents sacrifice for their kids. Some of the sacrifices are more of a sacrifice than others. Some parents may work two or more jobs to be able to give their kids a better life. Some may give up the last of the ice cream on a hot summer evening. I, of course, am like any other parent. I sacrifice for my kids all the time even if they don’t realize or appreciate it. But I think I made the biggest sacrifice of the year this past week. (Is everyone feeling sorry for me yet?)My gooseberry contact called last week and said those tart little green berries are ripe for the picking. I had never picked gooseberries before, but I was willing to sacrifice for my son, Drew. Little did I know how much of a sacrifice it was going to be. Drew loves gooseberry pie, thanks to my mother. She got him started on gooseberry pie a few years ago. It’s his favorite treat, and he always wants a gooseberry pie for his birthday in February. So off he and I went with our gooseberry friend to go picking. We went last Thursday in the middle of this little heat wave we’ve been having. The gooseberries were located down at the bottom of a valley where nary a breeze could be found. Fortunately, we were in the timber so there was plenty of shade. While I’ve never picked gooseberries before, I have picked plenty of blueberries and enjoy picking those berries. It’s so relaxing to go stand in the middle of the blueberry patch. Most of the berries grow in clumps and you can usually pick a handful at a time. Since the berries are blue, they are fairly easy to see among the green leaves of the bushes. The other nice thing about picking blueberries — at least the domesticated berries — is the bushes are fairly tall, so if you don’t want to have to sit or kneel on the ground you can do all your picking standing on your two feet. It doesn’t get much easier than that. Wild gooseberries are nothing like blueberries. The bushes grow low to the ground and since the berries are green, they are very hard to spot among the leaves. They don’t really grow in clumps, so you really have to search to find a handful of the berries. Oh, and did I mention the chiggers and ticks? I think we gave ourselves a bath in bug repellent before we started picking. But while those things may sound like I was sacrificing for my son, you haven’t heard the worst part. Gooseberry bushes have thorns. And I’m not talking about a few nuisance stickers. I’m talking about thorns the size of knitting needles. Those suckers are huge. And it’s almost impossible to reach into the middle of the bush without getting scratched from head to toe. I think I gave more blood in the gooseberry patch than I’ve given to the last six visits to the blood bank. Then after you pick enough berries to make a pie, you still have to clean the darn things. The stems have to be removed, and all the leaves need to be separated. Fortunately, Drew has been working on the cleaning part since he’s hungry for a pie. The last sacrifice I made is to turn on the oven to bake the pie Sunday evening when the outside temperature was about 105. Was all my sacrifice worth it? You bet it was when Drew gave me the thumbs-up as he wolfed down his first piece of pie.
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