Tuesday, 7/10

This truly is the most wonderful time of the year.

Oh, don't laugh. It's the time of the year where we have warm days, sunshine, beaches, picnics, the polychromatic display of flowers everywhere you look, sunshine (again), and the Tour de France.

Oh, and we have this--

Excuse the fuzziness of the picture; I took it with my phone in low light. But that is a quart of freshly picked Copper Country strawberries, lovingly supplied to me by my loving parents, who know that I'm a bit of a strawberry freak. No, really, I am. When I was seven or eight I went picking strawberries with them, ate everything I picked, and then ordered a strawberry shake when we broke for lunch.

So I really like strawberries. And when I say I like strawberries I mean fresh strawberries, and not those plastic tasting things you get in the grocery store in the middle of January. I don't consider those strawberries any more than I consider the pink powder that constitutes Strawberry Quik strawberries. Nope; when I say I like strawberries I mean strawberries like those in the fuzzy picture above.

Those are REAL strawberries.

That's one of the (many) reasons I love this time of the year. Not only because you can get ”real” strawberries, but because of the fact that at the moment my diet seems to consist almost entirely of fresh strawberries, blueberries, cherries, and plums. I'm not being literal; in fact, I'll tell you about an amazing dish I had Sunday night in a second. But if you were to take a look in our refrigerator right now you'd see all those fresh fruits I just listed, and more. After months and months of eating “fruit” that's either seen better days or was grown indoors, there's just something about eating fruit freshly picked from real soil after being grown in real sunshine. You can't beat it taste-wise, you can't beat it nutritionally...you basically can't beat it.

And that's why it really IS the most wonderful time of the year.

*****

Okay, that amazing dish I was talking about? Well, Sunday was just a little too hot for me to fire up the oven and cook something for Loraine (my usual Sunday habit), so we strolled over to The Delft Bristro. Next time you're there, you HAVE to try their Sage Goat Cheese Alfredo. I don't know that I've had a pasta dish that amazing in quite some time. In fact, now that I think about it, I don't know that I've had a pasta dish that amazing EVER in the U.S. It's that good! The herbiness of the cheese and the, well, sageiness of the sage go together amazingly well, and form the basis of the most wonderful sauce you can think of to slather over pasta.

Have I mentioned it was really good?

So if you're at the Delft, or just feel like grabbing a takeout dinner some night, try the Sage Goat Cheese Alfredo. You won't be disappointed!

(jim@wmqt.com), who gets to give another history tour tomorrow. More on that, well, tomorrow!