Summertime bliss

Despite my preference for cooler temperatures and the joys of tasty wintertime delights, there are a few pleasures that can only be found on a warm day.

In our home, I always make sure that we have some fresh fruits and vegetables at the ready. While this is important to do for the health of any household, my son's diet makes it even more vital that he has access to foods that are packed with nutrients. Gluten and dairy products have already been eliminated from his diet, so they must be replaced with other foods that can provide the same nutritional benefits. Among the foods that I love to keep on hand (especially when they are in season) are strawberries, which I consider one of the culinary icons of summertime.

Nearly everyone in my family loves this berry, and my son and I are no exception. There's nothing like a sweet, yet tart, strawberry on a hot summer day. They're refreshing, light, and always a pleasure to snack on straight from the carton. Even though eating them cold is nice, they are at their best when warmed by the sun. Today, I found a good deal (the rising produce prices notwithstanding) and located 2lb. cartons of strawberries for $5 each. I snatched one up and already, my son has devoured nearly half of the container! So, to honor the luscious strawberry, I located some trivia about it on http://www.pickyourown.org/strawberryfacts.htm:

Berries on a straw? There is a legend that strawberries were named in the nineteenth-century by English children who picked the fruit, strung them on grass straws and sold them as "Straws of berries". Another theory is the name was derived from the nineteenth-century practice (ands still today, although most farms use raised beds, enclosed in plastic) of placing straw around the growing berry plants to protect the ripening fruit.

Fragrant - The strawberry belongs to the genus Fragraria in the rose family, along with apples and plums. The name of the scientific classification was derived from the Old Latin word for fragrant. The modern Italian word for strawberry is still "Fragola".

Very berry or not? The strawberry is not classified by botanists as a true berry. True berries, such as blueberries and cranberries have seeds inside. The strawberry, however has its dry, yellow "seeds" on the outside (each of which is actually considered a separate fruit).

Native American Indians called strawberries "heart-seed berries" and pounded them into their traditional corn-meal bread. Discovering the great taste of the Native Americans bread, colonists decided to create their own version, which became an American favorite that we all know and love .. Strawberry Shortcake.

Ornamental value - The English and French also found strawberries used the beautiful heart-shaped berries to landscape their gardens. In fourteenth-century France, Charles V ordered twelve hundred strawberry plants to be grown in the Royal Gardens of the Louvre.

Lovely berries - Strawberries have long been associated with love and flirtation. At wedding breakfasts in provincial France, newlyweds traditionally were served a soup of thinned sour cream, strawberries, borage and powdered sugar. Miss that "borage"....

Seedy characters - On the average, there are 200 tiny seeds in every strawberry. If all the strawberries produced in California this year were laid berry to berry, they'd wrap around the world 15 times. That's enough strawberries to provide every U.S. household with 12 pint baskets.

Are you weird? Respondents to a recent national survey labeled strawberry lovers as "health conscious, fun loving, intelligent and happy." Non-strawberry lovers, on the other hand, were described as "weird, boring, stuffy--picky, fussy eaters who avoid healthy foods."