No more. I admit defeat, and we have waited patiently through a long, cold North Carolina winter. And finally, the sign sang out: Stawberries, May 3!
I’m stocked and ready. I have my baskets. I have my buckets. I have jars, and I have boxes of reduced-sugar Sure-Jell, tough to track down but worth the effort for the best freezer jam I know. I have rice and cream, because one of the best uses of that jam is as a rice pudding mix-in. I have powdered sugar for dipping. In the next few days, I’ll have pie dough in the freezer, whole milk for strawberry gelato (a new gelato book to review came just in time!), and yet more cream for strawberry shortcakes.
Certainly, we’ll eat many berries straight and in our supper salads, but I admit to unkind thoughts when I read yet another nutritionist’s warnings against celebrating the harvest with cream. Summer is coming, when we can eat unadorned melons, blueberries by the handful, and naked, dripping peaches. Spring is made for cream (they almost rhyme!) and no fruit goes better with it than strawberries. A week of bliss after what proved an especially hard winter, then back to moderation: Nutrition at its finest.
Recipe: Jammy Rice Pudding
