When I was younger there was a Strawberry Fair held not too far from my village, every July. The area was called the Strawberry Beds, not quite a town, more a long rural road with a few cottages dotted along one side and the River Liffey flowing along the other. It was and is a very beautiful place and to be able to see "countryside" so close to my home always made me love where I grew up.
At this young age, strawberry was my favourite flavour in yoghurts, jams and sweets. The point of the fair was to dine on the fresh strawberries, so when I finally got to taste one of those delicious looking little fruits, I went for it, and was disgusted! This was not the same as my favourite jam or sweets! Something must have gone wrong, so I tried another... and no, I disliked it also.
Therefore from that day until yesterday, the 4th of July 2009, it has taken me roughly 20 years and only 1496.05km to taste another one. Egged on by watching Hugh Fernley Whittingstall's tv show Summer at River Cottage and also reading about the fresh strawberries delivered to Reykjavik, from the greenhouse in Fludir(where we used to live). I decided to give them another try.
I baked up a batch of cream scones(half white flour, half wholewheat) and whipped up some cream(no devonshire). I can now join the throngs of strawberry lovers. I can see where my 8 year old taste bud's were coming from, a little bitter and that is all 8 year old me would have tasted, but so full of flavour and just lovely on the scones with the cream.
I would love to try my hand at making my own jam, but considering the punnet I got cost 599kr/3.38e/2.89£, it's a wee bit pricey. Well okay, it may not seem much in the other currencies, but consider that would have been half that a year ago!! So, no jam for us :( Unless we grew our own, but I don't see that happening for a while.
Here is a photo of the finished product.
Looking through some of Stephens film footage, I found a nice still of my shrug that I knit. You can see it better than the previous photo and the lovely lace cuff.
