Favorite fruit - the strawberry

Many many many moons ago I was a little girl in corduroy overalls lying on my parent's living room floor watching The Newlywed Game. I remember the male contestants being asked how many days a week their wife preferred to make whoopee. I'm not sure of the exact phrasing, but I knew they just went from laundry expectations to SEX. The general answer was 2-3 times per week, and then one couple, the lone brunettes, easily agreed that 7 times per week was expected. The live studio audience hooted and hollered as the brunette groom received jealous smirks and approving nods from the other male contestants.

Just watching that one harmless show set me up to believe that in 3 out of 4 couples, men will want more sex than women and they'll just have to live with what they get. However, if the wife has long, luscious brown hair, there's a chance she is just as horny as her husband. Strangely, sadly, watching that show also set me up to think my loved ones should know my favorites, rituals, and expectations of everything, lest they one day be asked whom I prefer to balance my checkbook (answer, the computer).

If my future spouse is ever asked my favorite fruit, the correct answer is the strawberry.

Mashed, reduced, and herbed strawberries on toast. Herbs are hard to see, but they are in there.

Like this time last year, it's strawberry time! A few weeks ago I simmered about a quart of crushed and chopped strawberries with half of a peeled and minced apple (for the natural pectin) with a little sugar and LOTs of fresh herbs - parsley, basil, and mint. The more the merrier. I was going for an herb-strawberry jam, not the other way around. I added the herbs at multiple times throughout the process, as if I was adding hops to beer wort in stages, getting something a little different (flavor and nutrition-wise) out of each addition.

To borrow a great ad line - I put this shit on everything! It's really both a jam and a salsa. Soft corn tacos with black beans and tofu, check. Breakfast sandwich with eggs, cheese, and veggie sausage, sure. In marinades and dressings, why not. With nut butter on banana, of course. In smoothies, you bet.

If you're gonna live in the midwest, you best get down with seasonal pleasures. Up next - cherries!