Recently, on a quick trip to my birthplace, Portland, Ore., I relived a bit of my childhood on a trip out to the West Union Gardens near Hillsboro, west of Portland. While a lot of the farmland I recall from my youth has been given over to manufacturing plants like Intel and homes and shopping centers, there are still places like this family-run farm where one can u-pick all kinds of great produce — and, especially, all kinds of cane and bush berries, from raspberries, Boysenberries and blueberries to gooseberries and currants and a few I’ve never even heard of. When I was a little girl, my siblings and I couldn’t wait for August, when the wild blackberries ripened in thick tangles of stickers at the edges of nearby woods and fields. My grandmother would come for the day and send us out to pick buckets of juicy fruit. She’d mix up her flaky crust and craft wonderful, tangy-sweet pies that to this day are one of my favorite memories of summer. So it was that my husband and I spent an hour or so last week picking pounds of Marionberries (an Oregon-developed blackberry) to freeze for future pies. In no time, my fingers recalled how to sense the perfect ripeness of a berry in it’s plump softness and easy removal from the canes, without the aid of eyes which might miss the firm, sour, still-reddish parts hiding on the backside of a cluster. I’m looking forward to using Granny’s pie crust recipe in the coming months to cook up sweet, warm memories of summers past to share with loved ones on chilly winter nights. I hope you get the chance to enjoy creating and recalling your own summer moments in these final weeks of the season. — Patty Vanikiotis, associate editor/copy editor