Huckleberries!

Last week I went huckleberrying for the first time ever. My friend Jenny called and invited me to go with her and three other friends up Kelly Canyon to pick the berries. Two of us had never been before, Sandy H. and I. We drove way up Kelly Canyon..way beyond where I remember getting wood years ago. When we get to a place where it looks like there's lot of berry bushes, we get out and three of us go on the northside of the road and two go on the southside. Sandy and I find some berries right off. But they are kind of big and have a funny blossom end. They don't really look like what I thought huckleberries were suppose to look like. So I ate one, and it tasted familiar. Then Gloria came over and showed us what a huckleberry looked like and said what we were picking weren't huckleberries. Then I realized what we were picking were service berries or what my Grandma Stubbs called sarviceberries (the oldtimer Utah accent, I think) and what my Canadian roommate called Saskatoon berries. Huckleberries are much smaller and lower to the ground. Gloria went off one way and Sandy and I stayed closer together. We'd find a berry here and a berry there and started thinking we would be lucky to pick a cup of berries by noon. We finally couldn't find any more berries where we were, so we crossed the road to join Jenny and Marcene. There they were, sitting down in the middle of a huge patch of berries, picking away! So we called to Gloria and she came over to join us and we got quite a few berries. I actually got 6 cups. I know this doesn't sound like very many but they are only about 1/4" in diameter....very small. It was fun to be up in the canyon and pick berries with friends and talk away.
When I got home, I washed the berries and put them on a cookie sheet in the freezer. I kept about a cup out to make some huckleberry dessert. When Craig came home, he commented on how strong the huckleberries smelled and they weren't even out. Anyway, the next morning I made a lemon-huckleberry loaf. It was a beautiful yellow color, dotted with dark purple berries and tasted great...at least I thought it did. When I served it to Craig, I asked what he thought of it. (Shamefully, I have to beg for complements from him unless it is white bread or mashed potatoes). He said it was okay, but the huckleberries sure tasted strong by themselves. I told him that the berries were not by themselves....there were less than a cup of berries in a large lemon loaf. He said that they are just a strong flavor by themselves. I determined that Craig does not really like huckleberries so I will save the others to make something when I have company here to appreciate the work I did to get those very tiny berries. Let me know when you are coming and if you like huckleberries!