M y grandmother worked in the kitchen alone, her canning and jelly-making stretching back to the days when women didn't do it for fun or for gourmet treats, but to have food during the winter.

Until she lost a leg to diabetes in her late 70s, she kept preparing pickled peaches, bread-and-butter pickles and blackberry jelly in quantities sufficient to stock a larder for a family of 10.

On the particular summer day she picked to make jelly, my grandmother would order my grandfather and me, if I was visiting, to an overgrown area at the back of their property in Statesville. We had to walk past the wooden car shed, where my grandfather had tacked up every license tag he'd ever owned, and behind his orderly vegetable garden.

There, blackberry canes grew wild, barbed whips twitching above the weeds and seedling pines. The stems, some as thick as my grandfather's wrinkled index finger, were dangerous with thorns. Even the most careful picker, which I wasn't, would pay with blood for the prize.

But what a prize: Berries a deep black that shimmered like glass.

Back then (I was about 10), you didn't see blackberries in stores. They had to be found; jewels scavenged from the sides of dirt roads or abandoned lots by those willing to do the work.

Blue jays sat high above us, and screeched echoing complaints about this invasion of what they had assumed was their private feast. Other than that distant racket, there was no sound but the scraping of leaves and occasional creak of the bucket handle. My grandfather could go for hours -- even days, I bet -- without saying a word, so conversation was not a part of the picking process. We would simply continue our work until the bucket was full or we ran out of ripe berries, whichever came first.

I had to watch out for stumps among the leaves and twigs -- my grandfather occasionally had large trees removed and sold for lumber -- and, more carefully, for snakes. If I saw anything that looked as if it might remotely be a snake (limb, rope, Cheerwine can), I was out of there. So I wasn't a very productive blackberry picker.

If I tore off for the house, my grandfather would look around briefly and keep on picking. I guess he figured that if I could run and scream like that, I wasn't really hurt. Also, this was why he always carried the bucket.

My grandmother preferred the more time-consuming jelly to jam, which meant cooking the berries to juice and straining out the thousands of tiny seeds through cheesecloth. This tedious sort of work fit her cooking personality, which was another reason that she worked alone -- she didn't want anyone else there potentially to mess things up.

The blackberry jelly was sweet and tart at the same time, with a deeper, more mysterious flavor than cheerful strawberry or sunny peach. I adored it.

When I wanted to try canning, I read about jelly bags and straining and hours of dripping and decided to start with jam. You simply mash the fruit for jam.

Initially, I was obsessive about following the Ball Blue Book directions. It issued many screaming warnings of the devastation that an unwitting sloppy canner could wreak. I didn't want my first efforts to be recalled as, "Oh yes, that was the year that Debbie gave us all botulism for Christmas." How festive.

It also tapped into my longstanding rocky relationship with chemistry. This goes back to 10th-grade chemistry class, when the teacher gave each pair of lab partners half a dime, told us to drop it into a bubbling glass of unidentified liquid and record the effects. The resulting noxious gas drove the class into the hallway. (Did he do this because he found out we called him Melvin the Mole behind his back? Consider the evidence.)

As has happened with many things as I've gotten older, I've realized where I can loosen up. Hot, sanitized jars and lids, and following the processing time: no alterations. Everything else: Try it and see if it works. Like the time I added lime peel and juice to blueberry jam (didn't work, tasted like Jell-O).

Blackberry jam was one of the first I tried, and I discovered my grandmother was right about her choice. Despite my best efforts in straining, the result was crunchy with hard seeds -- not what you want to eat on your breakfast toast. Jelly is the way to go.

Unlike her, I prefer to make a party out of jam-making. Friends come over, we mash and stir and breathe in sweet scents and solve our problems. When everything else in life is spinning like a Tilt-A-Whirl, seeing colorful jars line up and hearing them seal with a merry "ping" restores a little order.

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Making jam from fresh fruit is so easy, and you don't have to go through the canning process; freezing it works, too. Place it in plastic containers that will hold a cup or two (Ball makes ones just for this use) and let stand until set, not more than 24 hours, before freezing. Thaw in the refrigerator.

If you want to can the jam, you'll need a canning kettle to hold the jars in boiling water and a jar lifter (like a very large pair of tongs) to pull them out. These are available in old-time hardware stores or some big-box retailers. Jars, lids and other canning supplies are available in most supermarkets this time of year. You can order canning supplies online at www.homecanning.com.

You'll need powdered pectin, which helps the mixture gel. I like the low- or no-sugar version of pectin, which allows you to put as much or as little sugar in your jam as you like.

To prepare the jam, simply follow the directions inside the pectin box. You may also want to get the latest version of the Ball Blue Book, which is considered the ultimate canning reference, with up-to-date safety information and recipes.

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