Sunday, June 17, 2012

And red all over

This is a post about strawberries. Specifically, Ontario strawberries. Because it's that time of year again, when the strawberries are fresh and out to ruin you for all other strawberries. 


I adore summer strawberries. The ones that are a little bit on the smaller side, soft and ripe and dripping with juice. Red all the way through. After a winter of strawberries that crunch and leave you with a white, tasteless interior, these ones are nothing short of divine.

Their sweetness is fuller, lingering on your tongue with tangy under-notes, begging you to eat just one more. I like them best when they're on the cusp of being overripe. Maybe there's a small bruise on one side, marred so that other people pass it over for a prettier one. But that's when they're at their best, their sweetest, their most flavourful. And you can taste an earthiness underneath it all, something of the soil they were grown in, something of the spring rains that coaxed them into being.

This is the way strawberries were always supposed to taste. Of early summer's gentle warmth and sun-drenched days that never seem to end.

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