(No) Time For Canning

When I was eight, I held a position of honor in my family, particularly in the late summer. My hands were just small enough to shove a tomato all the way through the top of a regular-mouth canning jar. "Can Jenifer come down and help me can tomatoes?" my grandmother would call up and ask. I felt honored by this special position for about one season. After that, whenever I was "invited" to come canning I would wryly remark, "Yeah, my hands are small, I know."

I spent untold summer hours as a child at our kitchen table, a cake pan full of tomatoes and rows of empty jars in front of me. My much older brother and Dad served peeling duty as well, while my mother blanched old pillowcases full of tomatoes to remove their skins. Mom would regularly dump our tomato skins in the compost bucket and return full pans of steaming-hot tomatoes to be peeled. My hands would wrinkle and bleach clean from the acidity, except for my fingernails which had slivers of reddish black gunk under them. So why is it I look back on those days with such fondness? It must have been the family togetherness, the silliness we all shared, especially when a juicy tomato would squirt someone else in the face or a tomato would pop out of its skin onto the floor. It was a difficult job, but working together made it go more quickly.

Last night, I canned this year's first batch of tomatoes...alone. The kids are certainly old enough to help, but I tend to can late at night, when boiling a pot of water for hours on end doesn't make my non-air conditioned house totally unbearable. In 2006, I had such a bumper crop that I didn't can any tomatoes the following year. Now, my shelf is nearly bare and I'm longing to fill it with rows of bright, beautiful tomatoes. I didn't finish until midnight, and I'm feeling drained today. My mother used to put in batch after batch until well into the early morning, setting the timer and waking up every 45 minutes to take out the hot jars and put new ones in. No doubt about it, canning is hard work and you have to keep your mind on the reward that come from opening a jar in winter and eating a tomato that tastes almost as good a fresh one in August.

There was a time not so long ago, when everyone was busy canning this time of year. As committed as I am to growing and putting up my own food, though, I find it difficult to find the time. It was nearly dark two nights ago, when my Amish neighbor stopped by and said hello. I was digging the last few potato plants up, and she was carrying a basket with 15 bags of corn for the freezer. She looked a bit tired too. "It's a busy time of year," she said, smiling sympathetically. Leaning on my garden fork, I nodded in agreement, then related what I had put up so far this year, and talked about my crop successes and failures. It felt good to share with her, like it always does with my mother, because I know she understands that the work brings great rewards. "Don't work too hard," she said in parting. "I won't," I fibbed.

Nothing can compare to the feeling you get when that first very cool, crisp autumn day comes and you know you have a full freezer and shelves full of canned goods. I imagine I might be cooking up some applesauce, and decide to pull out a bag of June strawberries to sweeten the sauce. Or I might thaw some peaches for a cobbler to go with the beef roast simmering in a pot with onion and carrots from the basement and a jar of tomatoes from the pantry. After dinner, we might bundle up to take a short hike down to the river or start a bonfire in the backyard, our bellies full.

On late summer days, if I've spent several hours on my feet at the kitchen counter, I fall into bed exhausted, with back and legs aching and a feeling of great satisfaction. I've always been known as a planner, someone who looks ahead, prepares or perhaps over-prepares. I wonder if it has something to do with my rural upbringing, and learning to live each day connected to the growing season. Or,is it just me? Either way, I know that all the time I've invested since I first placed that seed order in February is finally coming to fruition, and I'd better find the time to preserve it now so I have something to show for my labors.

© 2008 Jenifer Dolde

Pork and Peaches

It felt like another adventure last Thursday as the kids and I set out in our truck for Conowingo, 45 minutes plus away at the far end of Cecil County, almost to the Pennsylvania line. I was off to pick up four large boxes of pork products from a locally-produced pig, which our family and three others had decided to share. We have purchased local beef several times before, and our most recent grass-fed meat from Rumbleway Farm had been the best yet. We don't eat quite as much pork, but the thought of some local scrapple, bacon and sausage was too tempting to pass up. My favorite quote about scrapple is on my 1st State Stories website: "The old saying is scrapple is made of seven different kinds of meat, all of them fit to eat."

Rumbleway uses Haas Butcher shop near Dover, Delaware, a family-owned operation that has been in business since 1955. There are not many local butchers left on Delmarva, and even fewer slaughter houses, but Haas is one that seems to be highly-regarded. To me, butchering is one of those skills that is passing away too quickly. With all of the concern about factory farms, I think we need to support and preserve the skills of the local butcher. I'm only half-joking to my husband when I say the knife skills he learned as a chef may come in handy some day. (Photo of scrapple making at the Family Butcher in Delaware)

Taken from another perspective, however, the decline of local butchers seems to directly correlate with our society's disconnect with where our meat comes from, and the fact that it once lived and breathed. In the New York Times last week, a columnist who forthrightly stated he was no vegetarian but he felt it was important for him to know his meat was humanely raised and killed before it made it to his plate, was both congratulated and vilified as a hypocrite in comments. I have never considered becoming a vegetarian and respect those who make that choice. Yet, I too want to find meat that has been produced without harming the environment,and without cruelty to the animal.

It makes all the difference for me to know how the animal lived and died. Does it make death pretty? No, but the awareness the death of animals for food used to be part of daily life everywhere in this country. On Delmarva for many generations, every fall brought family and community together for essential hard work. The animals were not treated more poorly then; on the contrary, I would say nearly all beef and pork in the late 1800s (and much more recently in some areas) was natural, grass-fed, and probably organic. The livestock were well-cared for because they were essential for the family's survival. It was only when the slaughter process moved away from the farm and the household that it became unfeeling, inhumane, and eventually unhealthful. Taking a hand in the birth, life and death of animals on the farm engendered a respect for the sacrifice God's creatures were making. That is one of the reasons I am working toward raising my own chickens, so I can truly understand that process and expose my children to it as well.

In any case, I was EXCITED about going to pick up my four large boxes of pork, but in the name of gas conservation and making full use of a trip to the other end of the county, I looked at Spring Valley Farm's ripe report to see if they had pick-your-own peaches. I had hoped to go blueberry picking earlier in the month, but just couldn't justify driving the distance. I discovered both white and yellow freestone peaches were ready, and set off with a wooden half-bushel basket and a wooden crate. My containers, it turned out, were largely unsuitable. The knowledgeable lady at the stand said the wooden crate was too heavy and I could only place peaches two deep in the basket. She gave me some useful, but less nostalgic, waxed cardboard flats.

As the kids and I followed the signs to the trees that were at their peak of ripeness, I flashed back to trips to a peach orchard with my mother and my brother when I was a kid. We always brought wooden baskets and I think our own ladder. I recall being chewed pretty thoroughly by some lower Shore mosquitos and developing an itchy rash on my forearms from the peach fuzz. Picking couldn't have been better on this day, however, with temperature in the mid-80s, fairly low humidity and not a mosquito in sight.

I had asked the Quaker woman who was one of the farm's owners whether the white peaches were better than the yellow. "Find a ripe one and taste it," she generously suggested. The white peaches were large and abundant, so we took 5 minutes to survey the orchard and find one that was perfectly ripe. I dusted it off on my shirt a little gingerly ("you can't grow peaches organically," the owner had told me) and bravely took a bite. It was like I'd never tasted a real peach before, as the sweet smell and taste collided. I beckoned the kids over and they each tried it and gushed over the deliciousness. Of course, we had to try a yellow one for comparison. Very tasty also, but the white were superior in my opinion.

I knew ahead of time that I had to control my picking. My second memory of peach-picking with my mother is that she often bit off more than she could chew, and picked so many peaches that she would be tied to the kitchen counter for the next week, peeling and pitting peaches to can and freeze. Upon arrival home, she would spread the peaches out on old canvas paint tarps on our front porch under the ping pong table, taking up about half of the porch. But eating her peaches in winter... oh, I can't even buy a canned peach in the store and forget one of those baseballs they sell in February. Mom shared some of last summer's peaches with us this past Father's Day over some angel food cake. I think that's when the burning desire to put up my own peaches started anew.

The peaches were a dollar a pound. Is that a good price? It sounded like a lot, when you're used to harvesting produce for free from your own garden. But the smell of the peaches, the sight of my children picking without being asked and my daughter's face dripping with peach juice was just too...intoxicating. After the weigh-in, the total was $72. I didn't really go overboard, did I? (Telling the story later, I related how I drove home with a whole pig and 50 pounds of peaches. "72 pounds," my daughter reminded me. "How much were the peaches?" my husband asked when he got home. "$70!" I exclaimed. "72 dollars," my daughter repeated. I think she understands me.)

With warnings from the orchardist to carry my peaches home in the front of the truck and to spread them out immediately upon getting home, we headed to Rumbleway to pick up the pork. Although the farm raises its own beef and chickens, the pigs actually come from a farm near my childhood home in Dorchester County, still local but considered natural rather than organic. The biggest challenge for most of the farmers seems to be finding certified organic grain. Pigs are almost always finished with grain, whereas beef can finish on grass. So while the pork is not organic, I still know what I am getting.

While the kids spent some time with the chickens in the barn, I asked to see where they processed their poultry. It was small, but efficient-looking. My idea of plucking and eviscerating under the maple tree in my backyard seems a little rustic in comparison. I asked if I could help with the processing next spring so I could learn how to do it, and they said absolutely, as if it were a most ordinary request. And then we were off, 150 pounds of thawing pork in the bed of the truck and 70 pounds (72 pounds, Mom) of delicate peaches in the front and the kids in the jump seats in the back. On the way home, I made my weekly stop at Locust Point Farm to pick up organic milk in glass bottles. All in all, a good day for a locavore.

© 2008 Jenifer Dolde

Summer is for Sharing

For me, one of the greatest joys of my garden successes is being able to share my surplus produce with visitors and friends. There's nothing I hate more than wasting a bountiful harvest, and nothing I love more than to take folks on a short walk around the garden and prove to them that I am accomplishing something even though I don't go off to a full-time job every day. Often, I receive something from their garden in return. My neighbor appeared at dusk one evening this week with two quarts of blackberries she had just picked (mine are still recovering from their late-winter move). Those berries, along with those my Mom gave me the week before, cooked up into a nice batch of blackberry jam.

Recently, onions have been at the top of my give-away list. I planted 75 plants each of Walla Walla (mild, sweet), Red Burgermaster (mild, red) and Copra (storage) and 25 Pikant shallot sets at the end of March. I was harvesting green onions in May and by mid-June, I had so many large onions that I began to worry how I would every use them all. Only one variety was for storage...what if they rotted before I could use them? A horrifying thought. So for the last several weeks, every visitor to my house goes home with at least one onion whether they like it or not, although the Mom of one of my son's friends is actually allergic to onions, so I had to let her off the hook. I have researched long-term storage of onions in baskets or bags on my basement steps, and am hopeful it will work. Can you image the smell emanating from a couple hundred onions decaying in your basement?

The problem with giving away vegetables--squash or tomatoes, for example--is that when you have plenty, so does everyone else. That's why it has been so much fun to share some of the summer crisp lettuce I grew for the first time this year. Whenever my Black-seeded Simpson lasted until June, I always felt grateful, but lettuce in late July is truly a miracle. Thanks to an article in Organic Gardening, I learned about this heat-tolerant variety just this year. I planted it in mid-May before the soil temperatures were too warm and by the time it was ready to begin harvesting in early June, the mesclun mix I planted three weeks earlier had bolted before I'd cut enough for three salads. My Nevada (green) and Magenta (red) summercrisp came from Johnny's Selected seeds.

I am enjoying the usual rush of cucumbers, and although I have given a few away we have had cucumbers almost every night for a couple of weeks. Earlier this week, I made a chilled cucumber soup. This was not the usual fresh puree I've made before, but a recipe which called for sauteing the cucumbers with onions in butter, then cooking them in broth for a half an hour. The mixture is then pureed and chilled. Creme fraiche was supposed to finish off the soup, but I added a cup of organic half and half that I've been trying to use up and then served it with a dollop of sour cream. Some people give me funny looks when I talk about chilled soup, but personally I crave it during the heat of the summer. See recipe below.

I derive great pleasure from making dishes for our weekend family "potluck" dinners at my sister-in-law and brother-in-law's cottage on the Bohemia River. We gather most Saturdays (and some Sundays too) for kayaking, sailing, swimming and--most importantly--eating. Not too long ago, our menu boasted grilled beef tenderloin, tuna, mahi mahi,lamb and pulled pork, all in one meal. I should probably mention that both my husband and my brother-in-law are former chefs, my sister-in-law works for a food broker and I am the self-appointed baker and produce-provider by virtue of being part of a long line of talented Eastern Shore gardeners and cooks.

Despite the extra work it takes to cook with home-grown fruits and vegetables, I have to admit it really is a selfish act. My husband's family always indulges me with compliments. "Did those ______ really come from your garden?" gives me even more pleasure than "That ______ tastes so good." So, this weekend, the family might expect some chilled cucumber soup, a blueberry buckle from the last of my berries, or some homemade fries from largest of my new potato crop, and most definitely some hand-battered onion rings...



Chilled Cucumber Soup

1 1/2 tablespoons butter
1 cup chopped onions
4 cucumbers, peeled, halved, seeded, cut crosswise into 1/2-inch-thick slices (about 5 cups)
1 8-ounce russet potato, peeled, cut into 1/2-inch dice
3 1/2 cups low-salt chicken broth
3 large fresh dill sprigs plus 6 tablespoons minced fresh dill
1 teaspoon (or more) salt
1 cup half and half
Sour cream (for serving)

Melt butter in heavy large pot over medium heat. Add onions and sauté until slightly softened, about 3 minutes. Add cucumbers and potato; stir 1 minute. Add broth, dill sprigs, and 1 teaspoon salt. Increase heat and bring to simmer. Reduce heat to low; cover and simmer until cucumbers and potato are tender, stirring occasionally, about 25 minutes. Working in batches, puree soup in processor until smooth. Return to pot. Cool 15-30 minutes. Whisk in half and half and 4 tablespoons minced dill. Cover and chill until cold, about 4 hours. (Can be made 1 day ahead. Keep chilled.) Taste soup, adding more salt if desired. Ladle soup into 6 bowls. Place dollop of sour cream in center of each bowl; sprinkle with minced dill. (Modified from recipe on Epicurious.com)


© 2008 Jenifer Dolde

When the Gardener's Away, The Weeds Will Grow

By mid-June, most gardeners on Delmarva have everything planted that they are going to grow for the year, at least the first crop. So it was for me, as I departed for a week's vacation, high on the success of the strawberry season. My tender tomato transplants were in and established, as well as the peppers. The potatoes were already knee-high. The carrots and chard had emerged in neat, narrow rows. I had already begun harvesting thick green onions from my spring sets. The summer crisp lettuce was seeded, the mesclun crop was ready for harvest, and we were still enjoying the last of the green and red leaf lettuce.

I didn't worry about my garden during our week at the beach. The newspaper and grass clippings mulch had held down the usual early summer crop of pernicious weeds in my paths, and with less area to weed, I had kept the rows relatively weed-free. We arrived home mid-afternoon, and the garden was my first stop. The growth was amazing: onions the size of tennis balls, cucumbers winding up the trellis, baby green tomatoes hanging from the vines, a carpet of succulent weeds half the size of the tomato plants.

I don't know why I was so surprised. Delmarva's hot, sticky weather is heaven for weeds. Eleven years ago this July when my son was born, I returned home from a four-day stay in the hospital after a C-section, excited to be a mother but distressed to see that the weeds had out-grown my garden plants. My mother came to stay and help, and she and my husband pulled a mountain of weeds and revealed the tomatoes and peppers hidden below. That was a rare gift--one I have never received since. Since coming home, our relaxing summer has consisted of driving from one fun event to another, so the weeds have grown even more. Today, I am planning to remove as many as I can. Besides, they're easier to pull once they're big. I'm not kidding!

© 2008 Jenifer Dolde

74 Quarts and Counting

It has been four weeks since I picked my first, juicy red strawberry of the season. As I write now, this year's glorious, whirlwind season has almost ended. Two nights ago, I struggled to pick a little over two quarts of smallish, but still tasty berries. Rain and an unusual 90-degree June heatwave have caused the berries to ripen and soften in quick succession, but we have still enjoyed every last one.

This strawberry season has been nothing short of miraculous. I planted 50 Earliglow plants in 2006, and as I mentioned before, could not bring myself to pinch off runners and pull up baby plants. One bed is a dense mat of plants, while the other still has plenty of stepping room. Two 8x8-foot beds, 128 square feet. Is that a lot? My neighbors told me they put in 150 plants this year. If their strawberries produce anywhere near as much as mine, they better plan on going into the roadside stand business. As of today, I have picked 74 quarts of strawberries!

By May 22nd, I realized I had a bumper crop on my hands, and began writing down all I had gathered up to that point. I began measuring my take in gallons, rather than quarts. I called my mother for something and left a message, "By the way, I picked 3 gallons of strawberries today." While I think she believed me, she was not suitably impressed until they came to visit on Memorial Day weekend. That night, the kids, my parents and I picked 5 gallons. My husband had purchased a 5.5 gallon galvanized tub the night before for icing down beverages and joked, "Maybe you'll fill this with strawberries." We did...the very next day. My parents exclaimed over the size of the berries and the cache they would find each time they lifted some leaves. "You certainly do have a green thumb," my Dad said to me. There is no higher praise to me.

As the weeks have passed, I find myself more and more alone in my picking duties. Both kids dutifully helped me for the first couple of weeks, but then I had to threaten them with no more eating to get some help. I was tired too. My hands remain stained a dark purple despite scrubbing with lemon juice and some heavy-duty hand cleaner. I've put up 32 half-pints of jam, frozen 12 quart-plus bags and even put several quarts on the dehydrator as I despaired of finding more freezer room. I have probably given away 20 or more quarts, and at least 5 jars of jam. When people gushed over my generosity I said, "Please, you're doing me a favor." I've been so busy, I've only made two strawberry pies. That, my friends, is a real tragedy.

My mother put in her own raised beds a couple of years ago, but felt her crop was a disappointment this year, at least compared to mine. "We'll have to try doing what Jenifer did," Dad said as he bent over my patch, continuing to tirelessly pick a couple of weeks ago. I think he overstepped a little bit there, but Mom kept her temper. "We did! I'll have to try adding more compost," she said. I suspect a generous application of compost had something to do with it, but I also think that surplus crops are a gift from God. I couldn't hazard a guess of how many people have eaten my berries this year. While I enjoy telling people "this is what a real strawberry tastes like," the real blessing comes from being able to share a delicious, healthy treat with my friends and neighbors. Several people have suggested I sell my berries, and I suppose I could have made over $250 this year at the going price of $4 a quart. I hesitate to compete with my Amish neighbors though, and it just seems like a lot of trouble to sell them. I'll stick to hulling strawberries every night until midnight, and racking my brain for just who might want to take another quart off my hands.

© 2008 Jenifer Dolde

My Grandmother's Peonies

In the 1940s, four years after my mother was born, my grandmother Cleora moved her family from the Dorsey (pronounced Dar-cee) farm across Church Creek to the house where my aunt still lives. Cleora and Vivian (yes, my grandfather was Vivian) had "set up housekeeping" at Dorsey farm when they married in 1924. Both were relatively late in age, my grandfather 29 and my grandmother 23. In 1925, their daughter Vivian was born (Yes, my aunt. I also had a great uncle named Vivian and Vivian is my given middle name) and two and a half years later, my uncle Tyrus--both born at home. Over the next nearly twenty years, the Brannocks moved about every four years, whenever my grandfather became "dissatisfied." They were at the Dorsey farm for the second time and this was their sixth, and thankfully final, move.

My grandfather Vivian was laid up in bed, recovering from a badly broken leg which he suffered in a fall from the hay loft down onto the tongue of a piece of farm equipment. With four year old Joan (my mother) at home and no license to drive, my grandmother loaded up a skiff over and over again and rowed everything--the chickens, coops, furniture, all but the piano and the cookstove--across the Creek to the new farm. The move took place in January, by which time winter had surely come to the Eastern Shore. The farm was owned by my grandfather's sister, Willie, and she had the ramshackle house fixed up with new windows and other repairs. They still had to get water from a well, but this was their first home with electricity. It was 1943.

Cleora also carried some peonies from Dorsey farm to the Church Creek place. With everything else she had to transport, these flowers must have been special to her. Hers had been a hard, rough life, growing up second to the youngest in a farm family with four brothers and two sisters, one of whom was rougher than most men (I knew her late in her life and although she was sweet to me, she had a terrible tongue and was a full two inches taller than my six-foot grandmother). The fact that Cleora took the time and effort to transport these flowers across the river demonstrates the sentimentality I always saw in her...and her tenacity.

About 10 years ago, my Aunt Vivian was mowing down and tearing up most of the perennial plants she had tended for well over 50 years, but she did call my mother and me to ask if we wanted some of Cleora's peonies. With no idea of where I would put them, I immediately drove over with my mother and dug several boxes full to take home. Actually, as I recall, my mother dug them for me. I'm thinking I may have been pregnant at the time, but since my mother is a slightly smaller but no less tenacious version of my grandmother, she probably just did the work for me. I transported my grandmother's peonies home by car, and planted them along my driveway. I soon discovered I had also planted an insidious patch of Dorchester County wiregrass.

Two years ago, we decided to renovate our attached garage into a family room and placed a detached workshop/garage directly over the spot where I'd planted my grandmother's peonies. Like all projects, everything happened at once and I found myself in July needing to transplant some bearded iris and my grandmother's peonies, which had spread beautifully into a 2-foot by 10-foot border. With a sense of futility, I dug them from the dry summer soil and placed them in a backyard bed. A few stalks of green leaves emerged last year, but no flowers. Meanwhile, the patch of wiregrass thrived and began coming up through the stone bed on which our new workshop sat. This year, only a few more stalks appeared, and still no flowers. Late this April, I began to worry that they were truly gone, and with them a piece of my dear grandmother, who died 23 years ago on May 2, 1985.

Last week as I mowed the grass, I saw a touch of pink peeking from a fat bud at the tip of a peony stalk. I investigated and discovered three pink blooms and two white blooms were about to emerge. They were small, and the one that had already bloomed was a bit bug-chewed, but they were alive! I pray that they will continue to slowly but surely recover from their harsh, mid-summer move. After all, if they could survive a trip in January 65 years ago, they can survive anything.

With my attention focused on the vegetable and fruit gardens this year, my landscaping certainly has suffered. Most years, I have weeded and mulched by this time, my annuals are in the ground and my pots are all in bloom on their window shelves. Instead, I have come to admire rows of red and green lettuce, bright red strawberries against dark green leaves, tall onion greens and feathery carrot fronds. The practical in me has chosen to elevate food crops over ornamentals. With all the work to be done, taking care of flowers comes second. But like my grandmother, I am sentimental, and there will always be a place in my garden for things of beauty.

My grandmother, Cleora Brannock, with her hydrangeas, just as I remember her in the early 1980s.

© 2008 Jenifer Dolde

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

I love strawberry season. It is backbreaking, hand-staining, delicious and all-too-brief. Anyone who has only ever had those giant, flavorless, mid-winter strawberries from the grocery store has never had a real strawberry. My Earliglow, June-bearing strawberries are in their second productive year (planted spring 2006) and I'm hoping to harvest for at least two more years before I pull them up and begin harvesting from new beds I am planning to put in next year. This time last week, I picked my first scant quart of berries, some of which were not quite all red but by the next morning had improved in their looks. The rest of the week, I saved up almost all of the berries as a special treat for my daughter's Brownie troop for our camping trip. It was music to my ears to hear all of those eight-year old compliments about how sweet and tasty they were. Right now, I have about 4 quarts waiting to be picked.

My strawberries generally have been very prolific, and although you are supposed to tame those runners the plants put out during the growing season, I have been loathe to pull out any of them. As a result, picking strawberries from the mat of plants covering my 8 x 8-foot raised beds requires a kind of acrobatics. Oh, it's easy enough to pick those tantalizing ones hanging over the edges--the birds go for those first too, getting them right through the netting--but the ones in the center can be a challenge. My technique is to work each foot in between plants to find a bare patch of soil, then bend and crouch to pick without shifting or moving my feet. It is most convenient to have my children or a helper nearby, to whom I occasionally holler and ask them to take full quart after quart and give me empty ones so I don't have to climb back out. I picked well over two gallons each day over the course of three days last year.

My back and my calves begin to complain after a half hour or so in this position, but there are just so many berries hiding that you ignore the cramps in a picking frenzy. Pull back the tops of the glossy green plants and there are three times as many as those peeking out from the edges. To let even one rot on the ground because it was left unpicked seems like a sin. Unlike asparagus, snap peas and even cucumbers, we never seem to tire of having strawberries on a daily basis. Last year, I put up over 40 pints of strawberry jam--enough to give away and still have plenty for PB & J sandwiches all year. I like to freeze whole berries on sheet trays, then bag them up to use in yogurt smoothies and to add to applesauce in the fall.

But by far the biggest treat is my mother's Strawberry Pie. It has a graham cracker crust, with a cream cheese filling, topped by whole fresh strawberries and a strawberry glaze. I remember making it for my husband on one of our first Valentine's Days together. Even though it was made with pale ghosts of real strawberries in February, I still think it helped me seal my place in his heart. Making strawberry pie requires some hard work, and a lot of patience. The crust, filling and glaze are made from scratch. You have to search for about 25 perfect, medium-sized strawberries to adorn the top in a circle or spiral design. But the hardest part is that even after all is made and put together, you have to let it sit in the refrigerator for at least 4 hours if not over night so that the filling and glaze can firm up. More than once, we have cut into freshly-made strawberry pie and ignored the filling and glaze spilling out onto the pie plate. Tastes just as good, even when it looks like slop.

Here is Mom's recipe, along with her graham cracker crust. I'll post a picture as soon as I make my first pie this weekend!

Strawberry Pie

8 oz. cream cheese, softened
1 c. strawberries, chopped
1 c. sweetened condensed milk
1/2 c. confectioner's sugar
1/3 c. lemon juice (2)
1 c. water
1 tsp. vanilla
3/4 c. sugar
1 T. cornstarch
approx. 30 whole strawberries

Whip cream cheese until fluffy; add sweetened condensed milk, lemon juice and vanilla. Pour
into cooked graham cracker crust. Chill 3 hours or over night.
Mix whole strawberries with confectioner's sugar; let stand. Cook berries with water; press
through sieve. Mix sugar and cornstarch; add to strained strawberry mixture. Cook until clear.
Pour thickened strawberry mixture over cream cheese layer of pie. Top with whole strawberries,
pointed end up.

Graham Cracker Crust:

20 graham squares
1/4 c. butter
1/4 c. sugar

Roll graham crackers into fine crumbs. Mix with sugar and butter and press into pie plate. Bake at 375 for about 8 minutes.

Strawberry season should be like childhood, sweet and full of simple, delicious memories. Enjoy it while it lasts, and take every opportunity to revisit it whenever you can.

© 2008 Jenifer Dolde