Goodness on a vine. You simply can’t talk about the South without talking about blackberries as a characteristic ingredient of Southern living. I could never get enough of this berry as a child: in a cobbler, in a pie, on Sunday afternoon with freshly churned ice cream. My friends and I would set out with buckets and sticks to harvest gallons of these berries. We would set off on a mission with our hopes high and buckets empty. The motivation was that there was no shortage of households willing to buy the berries. But for me, the money I could earn was small tidings compared with what I knew Mother could create with a bucket full of berries. My goal was always to collect enough berries for two pies.

As these outings were usually on a Saturday afternoon, I knew those amazing pies were destined for the Sunday supper, my favorite meal of the week. Blackberry cobbler placed on the dining table with a tub of homemade ice cream was the closest I would get to heaven on that day, whether I’d gone to church or not.