Strawberry Day

It is still well-planned to go and get your produce close to the source, even if a drive of some miles is part of the deal. As you may know, I enjoy driving and have cut corners of distance off the mapped territory to save gas. But a friend spoke of the u-pick berry fields she visited that week, charming her conversation with words such as sweet, ripe, and now. The price quoted wasn't bad, maybe three dollars a quart plus a dime for the wood container and a dollar for the heavy duty cardboard flat that holds eight quarts.

It was my plan for the first day of not teaching children to go for a morning ride out to the fields and pick a flat of strawberries. I freeze them, and in midwinter when January ice storms blow in from the lake, I toss them into oatmeal for breakfast, or thaw them and make a crumble with butter and coconut.

So I drove out towards the area where I spent six years of my childhood, back when the highway cut through a dairyland, with barns and meadows full of Jerseys and Holsteins. The locals would put out produce on slanted roadside stands made of unpainted scrap wood; if a family member wasn't out there to make change, you did it yourself from an old coffee can or tin box.

I would get eggs from a home that kept chicken coops out back, and the elderly lady would lead you into the enclosed porch to decide what was good. Except you didn't do the deciding, she would tell you which hens were laying, and the temperament of each. Some jumbos, mostly large, lots of mediums, fewer smalls and eggs that looked like canaries laid them called peewees were stacked on cardboard trays. You could buy seconds, eggs that weren't properly formed or the shell not complete, for baking.

These folks are gone, bought out, and the road is now a four-lane highway reckless with franchises and dealerships until you get past Wollcottsville, then it finally gives way to wild growth filling the drainage ditches on either side and few open fields. I missed the turn for the u-pick place, and decided to go further to the Farmer's Market to see what their prices were, and glad I did.

There were flats of strawberries ready for hauling to the car for a terrific price, so I grabbed one and solemnly said thank you to the greenmen who help crops and wild things grow, especially ready-picked. The woman who worked the counter said the berries were particularly sweet this year because of the lush rains. We have had several dry years in this area, and things had been growing smaller and fewer; the flat I had in my hands showed glossy red berries, whose caps were green and full.

I didn't wait to get home before checking to see what this sweet business was about, and the lady was more than right. The berry in my mouth flooded the senses with sugars, juices, season, and soil. I could have been three years old or twenty or fifty or two hundred; that flavor is a constant of memory, and the purity of something grown from the earth lifts you up.

When my son was little, we would go picking strawberries. At home, I could whip up a shortcake biscuit in no time, it really doesn't take that much doing. Mine were rich with butter and one egg, and made a nice contrast to the sweet berries sliced in lots of sugar, allowing for enough strawberry juices for loading the biscuit proper. A dollop of whipped cream on top, and you have yourself one happy boy sitting at the table.

They won't take long to put up, and I will have eight quarts of berries to carry us through the next winter. I am rich.