On our way to lunch in Orland, we passed a strawberry stand on the corner of O and Hwy 32. A quick, 55 mph, glance revealed that they had a supply of deep red and ripe strawberries. We looked at each other and said, in unison…”Let’s get some strawberries on our way back!” And so, 45 minutes later, we pulled into the small parking area next to the stand.
Now we had looked at some strawberries on Thursday at the Thursday Night Market in Chico, but they were the uniformly large berries that taste a lot like straw and are not berry-like at all. And so we had passed them up that night, hoping to find the real thing! Had we found it? These berries certainly looked good, very deep red, indicative of rich flavor. But, they were that “large” size that we are so wary of. The price was only $1.50 a basket and the measure was more than adequate. We bought 2 baskets and they were overflowing and then some.
We got them home and washed them in cold water…anticipating the rush of rich juice when we bit into them. But of course…you already know that they were not the berries we had anticipated. Straw again! Whatever happened to the rich berries of my youth? Soft and succulent, the juices dripping off of your chin. Are they lost and gone forever?
When we lived in Roseville, I had bought some strawberry plants at Capitol Nursery and had raised a small crop alongside the driveway. The berries were small, maybe 1” in diameter, but what a flavor! I have to find some more of those…that is the task assigned to me by my loving wife. Anybody know the names of good strawberries?
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