By the end of the day today, we owned 18 pounds of strawberries. Whoooeeey! That is a lot of berries. We shuffled stuff around this weekend to be able to make today a berry-centered day. The strawberry season here is a few weeks ahead of schedule and when planning June travels, we didn't factor that in. When we realized that today would be our last chance to pick our own berries, we made it a priority.
Our day started out with a stop at our local bakery for breakfast and some bread for a picnic lunch. I enjoyed our reflection in our nearly identical hats.
Jamie and Sylvia joined us at the field for picking.
The berries at Sam Kedem are organic and DELICIOUS! If you have never eaten a freshly picked berry that is warm from the sun, you are missing out!
Sylvia has yet to embrace that joy. She wasn't enjoying herself all that much. Apparently she had all of the fun she was going to have in the 10 minutes or so she was there before we arrived.
It wasn't until Jamie promised they could leave if she smiled for a strawberry outfit picture that we saw a happy Sylvia.
After we picked a huge flat of berries and filled our 2 ice cream pails, we headed down the road to a nearby vineyard. Alexis Bailly is a wonderful place for a picnic and I have been wanting to go back since I first went there 3 years ago.
They have sculptures and picnic areas spread around the property. It was a hot day, but absolutely perfect if you found a shady spot. The glass of white wine was a refreshing reward for our picking efforts.
Apparently, this is my favorite sculpture there, since I took almost this same exact picture the last time I was there.
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It'll take us a few days to get all of these berries in the freezer. The effort is worth it so that we can enjoy these berries in our smoothies long after berry season ends.
For immediate enjoyment, I made a strawberry rhubarb pie. I don't usually make pies, but I had a major craving, a ton of berries and a healthy rhubarb patch. I cobbled this pie together from 3 different recipes, including this one for the filling, this one for the baking instructions and this one for guidance on making the lattice work. The crust was a pretty standard all butter crust, except for I used whole wheat pastry flour for half of the flour. The idea for that substitution was from Urban Pantry. I have to say, this pie was the perfect way to end our berry day. I look forward to doing this all over again with blueberries in a month!
That looks like an amazing day! And Sylvia is such a doll. Love her strawberry outfit!
ReplyDelete(BTW, have you ever made a strawberry-rhubarb cake? I use this recipe, more-or-less: http://www.cooks.com/rec/view/0,196,144163-255195,00.html )