I fell in love with blackberry jam and cobblers at a young age. I was the self-appointed blackberry picker of the family because I was the only one who thought the payoff was worth the suffering necessary to get the really good berries.

I remember wading into patches that towered around me as chiggers shouted for joy. Briars tore at my clothes as I freed myself from one spot and became engulfed in the next. It's a wonder I made it home alive.

Earlier this year I took a little time for scouting berries. I checked the most likely spots around my parent's property. There were briars along the parkway fence. The bank around the pond also showed promise, with scattered briars mixed in the honeysuckle and wild grape vines.

I returned in July, full of anticipation. To my utter dismay, the berries were gone. Briars along the parkway fence were bare and dying, and I found empty nodes where berries had been on the briars by the pond. The robust red-winged black bird population in the cattails could be to blame. If I find any hard evidence, those birds will have to answer for their gluttony.

Disappointed with the outcome of the blackberry harvest, I climbed the hill behind my parent's house in search of alternative endeavors. I had read about using persimmon leaves to make tea, so I gathered a few leaves and brought them home with me.

The field guide "Edible Wild Plants of Eastern North America" recommends drying persimmon leaves at 140 degrees in a "Bussler oven." I did a little research and found that no one on earth knows what a Bussler oven is.

The leaves dry nicely in a Black & Decker Toast-R-Oven Classic Series TRO300 (probably a close relative of the Bussler oven). I recommend keeping a close eye on leaves in the oven -- they dry a whole lot faster than you might expect.

I filled a wire mesh tea ball about a third full with crushed leaves and let it steep in a teacup of near boiling water for five minutes. The flavor was very pleasant, sort of a gamey sassafrass for lack of better terms. I can say I would highly recom-mend it. But it's no substitute for blackberry jam.