Sapphires of the Garden!

by Virginia
(Key West FL, USA)

My mother used to take me to a park in New York City when I was about five years old. There she met another mother with a little girl my age and they bonded while we children were playing together.

One day the woman asked my mother to come to her home after the park and have a cup of coffee with her. So, we went to their home, which turned out to be a private townhouse with an elevator in it. As the elevator door opened to the family’s living quarters, the little girl took me to her room, which was actually a series of rooms. In one was a near-life-size dollhouse. It was so large that we could walk into it without hitting our heads on the ceilings.

Even at such a young age, I knew this was someplace different from my lifestyle, to say the least. We were called to another floor, where the kitchen and dining room were located and a maid placed a crystal bowl in front of me. In the bowl were dark blue berries, looking like a bowl of sapphires. Then the maid poured heavy cream from a silver pitcher and added a scoop of granulated sugar.

I was having blueberries and cream for the first time in my life. It was an experience and taste I would never forget. I have loved blueberries from that moment forward. Unfortunately, I don’t remember what happened to the friendship that was begun over that bowl of blueberries.

But many, many years later I bought a home that had just been built in East Hampton out at the end of Long Island. The lot that had been cleared to build the house was surrounded by dense woods. One morning I was walking along the perimeter of the yard when I spotted the same “sapphires”.

Sure enough, the edge of the lot was rimmed with blueberry bushes! I raced into the house for a little bowl and started picking. I did that each morning for about a week until the birds discovered them, too, and usually got to them before I could. But what fun and how delicious to have my very own blueberries each morning, with heavy cream and a coating of sugar, of course.