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It seems a little early, but there are local strawberries available already.
I will admit, strawberries are a favourite. Local strawberries in particular. Mostly for flavour. For some reason, they seem to taste better. Maybe it’s because they are just a little touch fresher. Maybe they aren’t allowed to bring flavour across the border. I have no idea. But it is rare when imported berries taste as good as local berries, so when I saw local berries, I had to get some.
I had to get two boxes, because I knew what would happen. One box was mostly gone by the time I pulled into my driveway. I couldn’t stop. They were so good. Or maybe it was just the first box of the season that tastes that way. But I ate a lot of strawberries. And someone could have tracked me from the trail of strawberry husks left behind.
But there was one more stop I had to make. After the initial feed of berries, I needed shortcake ingredients. Which suddenly reminded me I had to get canned whipped cream because my hand mixer kind of blew up. It was Christmas time. I was making cookies, using the hand mixer, when one of the beaters came apart. I’m not sure exactly why, but a piece of it zipped past my ear at high speed, bouncing off the wall on the other side of the room. The rest tied itself in knots, making it pretty much unusable. Since I rarely use a a hand mixer, it has not yet been replaced. I do have a whisk, but I’m far too lazy to make whipped cream actually by hand. So the squirt can was it.
Then came the choice for the cake part. There are so many options. I thought about your basic shortcake base, the biscuit. I also looked at the little yellow, spongey things, whatever they are called. And angel food cake. They had little round angle food cakes that looked like they might work just fine. But instead, I went with the Belgian waffles. Maybe a touch sweet, but a good choice. And a good place to start.
I mean, this is just the start of strawberry season. Hopefully there will be many more shortcakes to come and I will be able to check out all the options and make a proper comparison. At least I look forward to trying.
And I really should get a new hand mixer. One without the exploding beaters.
