Strawberries

While slicing a big strawberry for our tossed salad, I took the top off another, drizzled some balsamic glaze in the hole on top and ate it. Yum! I like the contrasts of flavor. My method of hulling a strawberry is to turn a berry against a paring knife, leaving a conical hole.

My favorite brand for any type of berry is Driscoll's. They must pick later because they taste riper and sweeter.

I also thought of some strawberry desserts. Who doesn't like a fresh strawberry pie? And, if you've never had peppered strawberries, you don't know what you're missing. Oddly enough, black pepper and macerated strawberries go together wonderfully. And if you don't tell people ahead of time about the pepper, they love my dish (usually over ice cream).

[Jenise]

Larry, agree on all counts. I'm pretty much over balsamic vinegar, at least the industrial mass produced kind, but the tang is great with strawberries. Driscolls grows the type i think of as English strawberries, often less red in color but very deep in flavor unlike those dark pointy red ones that have color but NO flavor.

I always put black pepper in my strawberry sorbet.

I have a small strawberry patch. Planted it last year, it didn't do so well, but this year it's gangbusters. However so was the new bunny production on our beach (they live among the driftwood) this season. My neighbor is always calling out to the eagles "here they are, come and get them!" while I grab rocks and wind up like Sandy Koufax should they come near my precious little furry friends. I won't get many strawberries this year.

I suggest you try Nonna Pia's Balsamic Reduction with Strawberry/Fig. Pretty tasty on certain things.

Discovered Fresh Gourmet Crispy Hatch Chiles today. They're like the french-fried onions in cans for toppings, but are green chile instead. Good and low carbs.

[Robin Garr]

Our local strawberry crop, usually a massive cornucopia, was reduced to zilch this year by a late frost followed by almost constant cool spring rain. I miss them, and frankly, they're so good that I'm not smitten by other strawberries, even Driscoll's.

[Jenise]

On Friday we got a box of four little cartons of local strawberries. I can't remember the last time I had any this good. They were so ripe and sweet that we knew we were on a 24 hour deadline at best to finish them.

It's been a cool June. And rainy, like every other day rainy. Probably bad for the strawberry business which otherwise is a pretty big deal hereabouts. I will admit to not buying them as often as I might otherwise because I can't stand the kitchen full of fruit flies that always comes with the berries.

Driscoll's? Really, it's a thing?

The deal around here is the incredibly flavorful and red-all-the-way-through species tristar. It's not commercially viable so greenmarket only. (Read more about it: https://www.grubstreet.com/2019/08/the- ... berry.html )

But, I don't work with strawberries at home because Pumpkin does not eat berries.

I occasionally buy a box just for me to eat out of hand.

[David M. Bueker]

They sell Driscolls in the markets around here. They are red and have no flavor.

Our local farm has berries right now, and since we're in an early summer drought they are really intense. No seasoning needed!

They sell Driscolls in the markets around here. They are red and have no flavor.

Peculiar. I always head for the Driscoll's.They are very sweet and ripe here, as are their blackberries and raspberries. I even emailed them once saying they tasted like when I picked berries with my grandmother. I wonder if it has something to do with grocery stores, transportation or area of country.

Cool spring (interspersed with hot days for ripeness) made for a good strawberry season around here. Of course cool for us was 70s and only rarely into the 80s. Often the strawberry plants turn moldy once it gets too hot and humid, but this year the farmers at the market could get two blooms off the same plants. Started in April and just about over now.

I have a very hard time buying berries of any kind in supermarkets because we can get nice local versions.

[Jenise]

I occasionally buy a box just for me to eat out of hand.

Perfect. Several years back I was hospitalized in Southern California, and Bob brought exceptional strawberries from a famous strawberry stand in Oxnard called Harry's Berries. They were twice the price of anyone else's but more than twice as good, and he brought a basket almost every day of the ten days I was there. The nurses would all see him walking down the hall with that basket and were all in love with him because of it. Occasionally a new nurse would hear about this and come into my room just to see them. Probably sounds nutty; but it was a scary time and I can't think of anything he could have done that would have made me feel more loved than that.

Jenise I feel,your pain re the rabbits! I had a raised garden bed with a fence built so I can grow veggies (and there are some strawberries as well.) and get to harvest the produce. Rabbits are very fond of tender green shoots. We also had to put guards around our fruit trees to prevent the rabbits ring barking them.