Strawberries: Jumping the gun

We're chowing down on strawberries. I adore strawberries, but I didn't always. When I was a kid, I swore I didn't like them because of all the little seeds (in truth, I'm not sure I'd ever even bothered to try one before issuing this verdict). We'd visit my grandma's house, where there was a neat little strawberry patch in the backyard, and I'd help pick berries, but my younger sister got to eat them all since I didn't want any. I was a fool.

The local berries aren't ready yet. And in general, I find that out-of-season supermarket strawberries are useless. Hard, sickly pink, and flavor-free. But in season, oh my. And we're now in the few weeks of the season when the berries flown in from CA are actually ripe and juicy, and Wegmans carries good-quality organic berries (that cost SIX BUCKS per clamshell compared to 2 or 3 dollars for the non-organic ones- UGH). But biting in to one of these berries makes me forget the dent in my pocketbook, and just feeds my anticipation of the day in late May or early June when the local berries are ripe for the picking.

Strawberry shortcake is a classic, and one we eat often during berry season. Just about the only way I don't like it is with those weird little round Twinkie-colored sponge cakes that come wrapped in cellophane and are sold in the produce section as "shortcakes." No, no, no. For me, the best shortcake is biscuit-like, with a crisp exterior and tender interior, and still a bit warm from the oven. I recently made some good ones from Dorie Greenspan's book Baking: From My Home to Yours- they're non-fussy to make and very tasty, plus the baked biscuits freeze nicely, meaning you can bake once, enjoy many times (I briefly warm them in the toaster oven before using). The original recipe calls for all heavy cream, but I didn't have enough and subbed 2% milk for the rest. The texture and flavor were still great.

And for a non-dessert recipe, we like this Strawberry-Spinach Salad recipe that I adapted from an old issue of Cooking Light. While my son prefers his berries unadorned, he liked the dressing on this well enough to eat all of the spinach too.

Tender Shortcakes


Strawberry-Spinach Salad