Recipe for Blackberry Preserves

I've waxed poetic before on the joys of blackberry picking, so this time I'll get straight to the kitchen, where it smells like sweet fruit and little spots of fuschia dot the counter, floor, and walls like spurts of blood (in a nice way.) I've just turned my two Nalgenes-full of wild berries into homemade blackberry jam. Blackberry jam is wonderful. Particularly on my most favorite food of all (most of the time), toast. I used Nalgenes because we don't have any large Tupperware, so if you are concerned with the BPA and BPB and BPA-to-Z leaking into your preserves, don't eat any of mine. I didn't offer you any, anyway.

I've written down the recipe, so you can give it a shot if you have some blackberries growing nearby, too. Weird blackberry picking almost-ruining moment: There's a horse riding place right near (but about 20 feet above and across the street from) the bushes where I'm picking, and this horse trainer lady comes out and yells to me that I need to move down the road because "you guys" scare the horses when you pick blackberries and there's a beginner class riding right now and that's a problem. Huh. So you're telling me that the horses are more scared of me than they are of the motorcycles growling by every 2 minutes? OK, lady. You're totally nuts. Not wanting to be a jerk, I moved---to a much better spot anyway, thank you very much---but of course proceeded to have a nasty conversation with Evil Horse Lady in my head for the rest of the berry picking excursion. So that's something to watch out for next time you're picking.

Anyway, on to the recipe. Next time I'll add some more liquor, or maybe herbs or spices... ooh, and maybe some apricots to make the flavor a little more complex.