I woke up this morning thinking about strawberries. I can’t
say why, exactly, but it might have been the bright sun just beginning to
intrude through a gap in the draperies. Or it might have been the trilling
cacophony just outside my open window. The sun and the sound of the birds only
wake me in the spring and summer and I suppose my brain was already moving on
to the next things that herald the best time to live on Candlewood Lake:
strawberries, Johnny’s chicken burgers on the grill and cold beverages.
So back to the berries. I really learned about the art of
buying fruits and vegetables when I lived in France more than 10 years ago. At
that time, super-speedy refrigerated shipping and storage were not as prevalent
as they are today. We found in the markets only the fruits and veggies that
were ripe and in season in the nearby area. I think the only time we could
anticipate a fresh fruit treat out of season from a truly distant land was
clementines from Israel at Christmas.
Strawberries were my introduction to this wondrous
phenomenon. I had just arrived in Paris with my two young children and my
husband announced that we would go food shopping. I was soon to discover that
there was nothing in the fridge in the huge, old house we had rented. Thoughtfully,
he had waited for me to join him to accomplish such a task. The irksome part of
this is that he had already been living there for six months. Those tales, my
friends, are for another day.
So we go to the market. It is a magnificent, outdoor affair
with lines and lines of stalls featuring everything from salad greens to rabbit
carcasses. My jet-lagged brain was slow to adjust to the French writing on all
of the signs, and filling my ears. My husband, ever the eager helper, picked up
a cardboard basket of strawberries and asked me, “is this a good price are
these good?” Before I could answer, the woman operating the stall reached
across her beautiful display and slapped at his arm, nearly causing him to drop
the carton. She growled something incomprehensible at him and shook her finger
at me in admonishment. Hmmmm. I guess we are not to touch the goods, as we do
at home in the United States. Lesson learned. I looked at him in despair and
said that any price would be good right now and would he please just pay the
unhappy woman and let us be on our way.
A few weeks later, I had learned to navigate the roadways
and the kids and I found a wonderful, pick-your-own farm. Here we used shovels
to wrest carrots from the ground, pulled green beans off their bushes with our
fingers and sat in the warm sandy soil among the strawberry plants and simply
ate the berries as fast as we picked them. When we got home, we made a dinner
of those veggies and for dessert, a beautiful strawberry tart. I had not had
any cooking lessons yet, and boy did I need them, so the tart was not actually
beautiful in the traditional sense. I did not get the cream right but we sure
had fun creating designs on top with the sliced berries. Sadly, by the time we
were finished with the masterpiece, we were too full to eat it. The tart was a
little defeated looking by breakfast the next day, but it was still delicious.
So today, I conjure up all of my strawberry memories as I
lie in bed and think about summer. Strawberry season is upon us now in Connecticut
and the local crop is a good one indeed. My mother always told me the best way
to buy fruit is to smell it: does it smell like a strawberry? Surprisingly, the
answer is often no. But go ahead and lift that plastic container close to your
face and inhale deeply. It should smell like sunshine, sweetness, birds singing
and the star of your lunch-time salad.
