I call the woods around the farm Where the Wild Things Are, because great-grandmother Florine’s mimosa trees and great-grandfatherHorace’s blackberries and muscadines have all volunteered and gone a little crazy back in there, where they are free to flourish. As a kid, we had wild blackberries growing along the edges of the ditch when Galilee Road beside our farm was a dirt road. When they were ready for picking, my cousins and I would fill our buckets with more blackberries than Nana could possibly use because we knew if we did, she would say, “Now, y’all done picked enough for to make a doobie.” A doobie is kind of like a cobbler, but it’s more akin to sweet dumplings. Serve warm with fresh whipped cream, vanilla bean ice cream, or a scoop of one of the gelatos on page 211. Once you take a bite, you’ll taste summer for real.
*Note: Sucanat is simply a less-processed derivative of natural sugarcane and involves no chemicals in the making the way white granulated sugar does. The gift: a healthier sweetener with a richer, more complex flavor profile, which means you need less of it in a recipe.