the last post

Can one have too much of a good thing? It would seem so! As the last of the strawberries we took home on Tuesday grow soft and weepy in the fridge, I realize today I’m ready for a banana on my cereal. So finicky we westerners are, with our palates trained for and expecting variety.

But I think I must still go out and get more regardless that I am now sated. For in a few weeks, when the strawberry season is over and the price for them has quadrupled, I’ll regret I didn’t freeze a couple of margarine tubfulls to make jam for my Christmas baskets, and neglected to make my most favorite strawberry treat of all – fresh strawberry pie.

My tattered Pillsbury Cookbook has a great recipe for that – in which you make your own glaze. Here it is:

FRESH STRAWBERRY PIE

9-inch baked pie shell
3 pints (6 cups) strawberries, hulled, washed and drained
1 cup sugar
3 tablespoons cornstarch
½ cup water
a few drops red food coloring (optional)
Whipped cream

Bake pie shell. In small bowl, crush enough strawberries to make 1 cup. In medium saucepan, combine sugar and cornstarch. Add the crushed strawberries and water. Cook until mixture boils and thickens, stirring constantly. (Stir in food coloring.) Cool. Spoon remaining whole or sliced strawberries into cooled pie shell; pour cooked strawberry mixture over top. Refrigerate 3 hours or until set. To serve top with whipped cream.

And finally, my last strawberry thought – a poem:

STRAWBERRY SEASON*

In Krause’s fields the berries lie
‘neath Fraser Valley’s June-blue sky.
They fantasize a fate of fame
on platter for M’sieur, Madame:
"Discriminating – come and buy!

"Or if you ring us round, a pie
with glistening glaze to glorify
we’re fine with that, or set in flan,"
from Krause’s fields.

July sun swelters... "Hear us cry!
It seems we’ve set our sights too high.
We’ll modify and reprogram
and gladly now consent to jam,
leather or juice. Pick, or we die
in Krause’s fields."

– V. Nesdoly © 2003.

*Written in a spirit of lightheartedness, with apologies to John McCrae – and intending in no way to disrespect or trivialize his timeless poem.