It’s blueberry season. My favourite season of the year. Not just because I love blueberries, but because it is smack in the middle of summer. People are more relaxed. People are talking about trips to go camping, visiting family and friends hither and yon. There’s icy beers on patios, wasps buzzing around your al fresco supper, swatting mosquitoes during river valley walks, fans buzzing to keep you cool, nighttime storms that shake you out of bed. And memories. Many many happy memories. I will share one with you.

Back when I was about 9 or 10 I was out at my grandparents farm at Seba Beach. It was this time of year, and my Mom, Baba, Aunties, cousins and I went out to pick wild blueberries. Mom, Baba and Aunties are all hearty folk, having grown up on a farm with an outhouse. My cousins and I, on the other hand are city folk. We are the type of people who step in outhouses with great trepidation, noses plugged, absolutely certain that creatures are going to crawl across our little bums as they hover over the hole to the dark pit of unmentionables. Our exposure to “roughing it” was, and continues to be, very limited.

Back to blueberry picking… We make our way through the bush and find our blueberries and pick pick pick. It is amazing today to think we were picking wild blueberries! Anyways, we pick pick pick. And then, all of a sudden, out of the blue, we upset a wasp nest! You would think we discovered a dead body in the bush with all the hysterics. The screaming! The running! The screaming! The flaying of arms! The crying!

And that was just me.

Turns out everyone, including my cousin who has an allergy, were all bitten. But me, the one who screamed and cried and flayed the loudest, came out of that with nary a bite. *tee hee*

Let’s move our attention to blueberry pie. To make a blueberry pie, you must start with the essentials. My friends, you know me well now. That means we start with a gin and tonic.

Once that is underway, we are ready to prepare the pie. Of course, you must make sure you have blueberries, and blueberries I have. I went shopping a week ago, and blueberries were on sale cheap at Safeway, so I bought a 1L package. Today I went shopping, and found a 2L package on sale at Soby’s. 3L of blueberries need something done with them other than occupying space in the refrigerator, so decided blueberry pie was the best, easiest way to use them up.

If you are a Mom, Auntie, or Baba you probably understand the saying “easy as pie”. As I’m city-folk, the only way pie can be easy to me is if the dough is pre-made and found in the frozen food section of the local grocers. I had visions of setting the rolling pin on the counter and tossing a few spoonfuls of flour over it to take a picture and make it look like I hand-made my pie crust. But I can’t tell a lie. So I took my pie crusts out of the box, and put them in my own pie pans, so it at least has the appearance I made it myself.

Next up is blueberry pie guts. Now this is easy. Blueberries. Sugar. Flour. Lemon zest. Lemon juice. Oh my goodness. One of the best food combinations in the ENTIRE UNIVERSE is blueberry and lemon. Oh my oh my. So delicious to smell and to taste. Add white chocolate and you are going to get a reaction from me that is R-rated. Don’t worry. I am omitting anything to do with white chocolate from this post, and will keep this blog PG-rated.

Gently mix your blueberries, sugar, flour, lemon zest and lemon juice together.  Put in your pie shell. Cover with more pastry. Pinch the edges together. Add vents. Brush on some milk or egg white. Sprinkle on a bit of sugar. And bake. It is that easy.