Last week Michael and I went strawberry picking. I've always wanted to go—I've enjoyed the fresh-picked bounties of side-of-the-road farm stands many times, but I've never actually picked my own. Farm strawberries are always amazing: tender, bright red all the way through, gently warmed
by the sun, bursting with juiciness and true strawberry flavor, and
sweet sweet sweet. Basically all the things that grocery store
strawberries are not. I can't get enough of them.
Such a wholesome view, right? When we arrived, an old lady greeted us, gave us some collecting baskets, and told us, "Make sure you try plenty! Gotta make sure they're delicious!" There was also a sign hanging up that said "Please eat as you go!" Fine by me! I was of course going to eat one or two before we weighed our baskets, but since you pay for what you harvest by the pound, I would have felt too guilty about more than that. Fortunately for us, we apparently got free rein to eat as many as we wanted.
And once we actually walked out to the rows of strawberry plants, the aroma was suddenly incredibly strong. It was sweet and fruity and oh-so-strawberry. It was seriously making me giddy before I picked a single berry. Have I mentioned how much I love farm strawberries?
Beautiful!
And then we just picked a bunch of berries, each of us on one side of the row of plants. I think pleasant is the best word for the morning. Really, really pleasant. It was sunny and in the low seventies, the smell was amazing, plus we were pretty much alone in our little sector of the field, so it was really fun to just chat and enjoy each other's company in the warm, strawberry-scented air, snacking as we went. We forgot to have someone take a picture of both of us with our loot, so...here's a picture of just Michael!
He would make a cute migrant worker.
Anyway, we ended up with five quarts of fresh strawberries for twelve bucks, which is an awesome deal compared to roadside stand/farmer's market prices but a pretty bad deal when you consider that we were basically migrant workers for an hour. It's an important part of the strawberry picking experience, though!
Yum. We probably ate about half of the berries out of hand over the next week (which is absolutely the best way to enjoy fresh berries), and then I made
strawberry vanilla jam with one of the last quarts. It was my first experience with making jam or canning anything, so it was an adventure in and of itself. But the jars all sealed properly and there was enough left over after filling the prepared jars to keep a little half-full jar in the fridge...which meant that we got to try some right away, hooray! The flavor was awesome. Steeping the berries with sugar and vanilla beans before cooking them was absolutely inspired. The only thing that turned out funky was the texture (and this was probably a result of my own inexperience). Instead of being a homogenous, spreadable jam, it turned out more like a bunch of sliced strawberries in some delicious syrup. Oh well. It was still the bomb on toast.
It'll be hard not to bust these open before the winter...
And then yesterday, when the remaining berries were on their last legs, I made a quick flummery, which I usually use as an ice cream topping (it was half strawberries and half blueberries, which is why it looks so purple). It was a great way to say goodbye to those amazing strawberries.
See you next year, strawberries!
