Strawberry Shortcake

The image below looks slightly better than it tastes, but it takes simplicity to a level I kind of like.

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When I picked fresh Maine strawberries in mid-June, I was only home in Maine for, maybe, a day or two. I packed a bunch (are strawberries called a 'bunch' when they're taken as a group?) and moved them to Massachusetts, along with the rest of my stuff. That's right. I packed my strawberries right beside the boxes of tee shirts and totes of shoes. Gladly, they survived the trip-- barely. Fresh-picked strawberries are delicate beings. I find that if I do not eat them within a few days, they become more mush than berry. But that first bite just minutes after they've been plucked from their dirty, leafy wombs? Worth every ache and pain from squatting in the field under a blazing hot sun. The juice erupts from the skin, filling the lucky biter's mouth with sweet, sunny nectar.

I fear my description may seem grandiose, especially if you have, devastatingly, been limited to store-bought berries. To be fair, strawberries of any origin at any time of year are my favorite fruit, so I can't begrudge my fellow fruit fiends for buying our pre-packaged friends. But nothing-- and I do mean nothing-- in the world compares to a berry baked under the sun in rural Maine. And my description, while a little verbose, is accurate. Trust me on this.

So the berries in the image survived their journey, and I wanted to treat them with as little sugar and abuse as possible. These berries were tossed with about a tablespoon of honey (primarily because I did not have sugar in the apartment; secondarily because honey has a certain organic quality that you just can't get from granulated sugar). I baked the biscuit by adapting a recipe I found online.

The biscuit was a mixed success. It didn't rise like it should. It didn't develop that fluffy interior I love so much. But it did taste like a biscuit should taste, and it came out of the oven steamy and doughy, which I quite like. And when fresh berries have been tossed with honey, they demand to be eaten in exactly this fashion.

Thus: the image above. A quintessential (at least in my family) summer dessert, prepared with a lot less effort than my Gram and Gramps used to put in (pureeing berries, sweetening, chopping, repeating). I'll take it any day, in any place, at any time. It will always mean watching the world go by on my grandparents' front porch and the simplicity of summer.

Happy eating-- with fork in hand.