Strawberries.

"While rinsing strawberries, you have the privilege of spotting and eating the very best one, the deep red jewel that is free of indents and blemishes."
(excerpt from "Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Mind" by Amy Krouse Rosenthal, pg. 185)

I've had strawberries from the grocery store, and while they have been good, there are none that compare to berries that have come directly from the grower. The berries are fresher and sweeter...just...better. A few years ago, T and I bought some berries from one the farms that sells roadside. And then we didn't in the years after that, and I don't know why. Just didn't make the effort, I suppose. This year, though, I determined that we would get some during Florida strawberry season and we did. And it was very worth it.

I've always been a big fan of strawberries. Gramp used to grow some in his garden. The only thing better than buying them fresh from the grower is going into the garden, picking a handful off the plant and eating them, sweet and sun-warmed, right there.

Gram loved to tell the story of when I was about three years old. I was playing outside and she realized I was being awfully quiet. She looked in the immediate backyard -- she and Gramp owned nearly three acres of land -- and I was nowhere to be seen. So she raised her voice and called out for me several times. Scanning the yard, she saw the top of my little light brown pigtails bouncing toward her from the direction of the gardens. I had gone off in search of those berries! I had a whole handful of them, as many as a wee little hand could hold anyway, and I was running to her with all my might, delighted to share my treasures with my most favorite lady in the whole world. Only in my determination to answer her call and show her what I had found, I had squeezed my little hands into pint-sized fists as I ran. By the time I reached her, the strawberries were little more than juice running from between my fingers.

Gram laughed gently at my shock, mopped me up, grabbed a bowl, and taking me by my pink-stained hand, led me back to the strawberry beds to pick me an early summer treat. There never has been anything better than spotting the best berry and taking a big juicy bite, to this very day. And I will never see fresh strawberries and not remember Gram telling and re-telling that story.

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