The wisdom of strawberries

You cannot fool a strawberry. You can try to grow strawberries in greenhouses, or ship them in from Argentina with special chemical or fume baths in order to make them look red, but they are never fooled and don't taste very good. You can fool me. I broke down a few weeks ago and purchased a plastic clam shell full of bright red and perfectly formed strawberries, but the insides were pale and hard and they tasted like...duh...an unripe strawberry.

It's like girl scout cookies. You can only get them at a certain time of the year. In my opinion, it makes the cookies taste all the better. Mmmm...thin mints... Sorry, I got a little preoccupied, but I'm back now. Where was I? Oh yeah, and because you can only get them at a certain time of year, it makes it all the more special.

I also think this is why many people claim to dislike vegetables and/or fruits. Most people are now used to getting the sad, out of season, sterile version of oranges, tomatoes, and grapes and have no idea how good these things can be. When is the last time you ate a pear that was so juicy you had to stand over the kitchen sink? Because my friends, lest ye forget, pears are supposed to be juicy. That's why the Jelly Belly pear jelly bean is called 'juicy pear' not 'rock hard dry mealy pear'. Have you ever stopped to think how weird it is that the produce section in grocery stores doesn't have a scent? All of those fresh fruits and veggies packed in one location and you can't smell anything. WEIRD! You practically have to shove a pineapple up against your nose to get the tiniest wiff of it. Why? Because unripe foods don't smell strongly.

So what to do? I'm so glad you asked! First, resign yourself to food seasons. Eat strawberries during strawberry season (which incidentally is late spring-early summer in the Midwest). If you must have strawberries during the off season, think ahead and freeze them. No, they won't be perfect, but still much more flavorful than your January grocery store strawberries. Second, shop for produce at farmer's markets. Why? Because some grocery stores will still get strawberries from South God-Knows-Where even when it's strawberry season in their region because it's easier to get the product from one place year around rather than switch it up. So even though it's June, you can still get crappity crap strawberries from your local Megamart, but you will get the sweetest, juiciest, most luscious little red gems of pure sunshiney strawberry goodness from the farmer's market. I'm talking little fruits so fantastic that they will stain your fingertips red and you will have to make slurping noises while you eat to keep the juice in your mouth.

Did you know that ripe strawberries don't need to be dipped in sugar to be good? It's true! Even if you have a raging hard-on for sweets, they are so naturally sweet that sugar is unnecessary. Studies show that 8 out of 10 people prefer ripe strawberries to Dairy Queen softserve icecream. Okay. I just made that up, but I bet it's true!

"But Liiiiiiiiiiinnnnnda!" You whine, "I want to have strawberries year around! I don't want to have to waaaaiiiiiiiit". Well, says I, you can have strawberries year around but they will suck. And you can't have good strawberries year around. You just can't. Why? Because you can't fool a strawberry. You can't make it believe it's June when it's January. You can't make it believe it's ripe when it was picked when it was green. You can't. Sorry. Alton Brown has some ideas on how to best freeze our berry friends that I will try this year. I'll let you know how it goes. Here is the link: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/frozen-strawberries-recipe2/index.html if you want to try it yourself. I say instead of lamenting our lack of power over Mother Nature, let's celebrate it! Let's get excited about our food instead of taking it for granted! Let's look forward to garden-fresh-never-been-refrigerated tomatoes and let's savor blueberries that were picked yesterday! Have a blueberry party in July and serve blueberry martinis, BBQ ribs with blueberry BBQ sauce (so FREAKIN' good people! A hint of blueberry in the BBQ...mmmmmm) and have cheesecake with blueberry compote topping!

YES! I raise my blueberry martini to anticipation instead of instant gratification that's not really even gratifying. Oh sure, it seems like a good idea at the time. It's like going to the Vogue and having a disappointing one night stand. Oh, maybe it was okay at the time, but it wasn't nearly as satisfying as you thought it would be and it leaves you feeling vaguely uneasy. Don't waste your time, money, and culinary effort of the substandard I say. In the bedroom and the kitchen, only have the good stuff.