My father loves dessert. My mother baked spice cakes, brownies, pies and cookies daily, so he'd have a homemade treat after dinner and in his brown bag lunch. His first words after surgery? Chocolate ice cream, please. All this means that for his birthday and Father's Day, we pull out the sweet stops.
Fortunately for this cook, Father's Day falls at the height of local strawberry season. True, California, the state that produces more strawberries than any other, boasts them nearly all year long. For the most part, we're content with the large berries from California (and Florida) _ especially when sugared and used to top pancakes and waffles or in crisps and cobblers.
In the Midwest, local strawberries hit their stride in June appearing at farmers markets like magical flavor variations of an otherwise ubiquitous berry. It's imperative to act quickly _ in my experience, they sell out quickly, so we gather our treasures early in the market day. If we're lucky, we make it to a nearby you-pick berry farm to stock the freezer before the fields are picked clean.
Why incur the anxiety and expense of local berries? Pure and simple: flavor. Commercial strawberries are bred to taste and look alike from crop to crop. Local farmers grow different varieties _ they tend to be smaller, more aromatic and juicy. We eat them raw, lightly sweetened, lightly cooked, tucked into muffin batter, frozen into sorbets and pureed into smoothies.
I also enjoy these aromatic red berries with savory seasonings such as sweet-tart balsamic vinegar and black pepper. These macerated strawberries make a terrific topping for avocado toast or stirred into warm brown rice with garbanzo beans and fresh chives.
The following strawberry sauce, infused with red wine, thyme and cardamom, tastes equally great on ice cream as it does grilled pork, duck or chicken. Make a double batch _ it keeps a week or more in the refrigerator and can even be frozen.
For a new twist on a strawberry sundae, assemble the dessert on a plate instead of the traditional sundae bowl. Add broken meringue cookies and decorate the plate with confectioners' sugar and cocoa to be oh-so-chef-y.
Strawberries, sweet and savory. Get 'em while you can. Your father will thank you.
