Farewell!

As the semester comes to a close [one week of classes left!] I will be ending this blog. It has been fun, but hopefully I have exhausted the topic of strawberries.

If you could not tell by the majority of my posts, I have a small obsession with strawberry shortcake. So, I thought it would only be right to dedicate my final post about Strawberry Shortcake [the doll/cartoon character]

Personally, some of my first childhood memories are of this doll. I had the only were she came in the form of a cupcake, and when you flipped the cupcake "wrapper" down it became her skirt and her hat was the cupcake's frosting. This was by far my favorite toy and my little sister had her friend blueberry or something of that nature. Anywho I found a little bit about the history of this lovable character!

She was created in 1977 by Muriel Fahrion as part of the greeting card company American Greetings. It became a fad in the 1980s, and it turned into a doll with it's own sticker, clothing, and gaming lines. She had a whole line of friends that had fruit or dessert names and scents, with matching pets with fruit and dessert names as well. By 1985, the fad had ended, only be be revived in 2002. Now there are tv shows and DVDs dedicated to Strawberry Shortcake and her friends!

Strawberry Overload????

Sorry for the frequency of these posts, but as the semester is coming to a close, so will this blog [plus blogging beats studying or writing a paper any day!]

So I have been trying to come up with ideas for my last few posts and just when I thought I was out of ideas it was as if someone decided to dump a field of strawberries on top of me! Ok so that may have been a slight exaggeration, but I did encounter a lot of strawberry related food items today.

After our food "field trip" today, the food was a little too heavy for my stomach to handle so I figured I would just have a really light lunch. As usual, the dinning hall did not come through for me again. I just grabbed a yogurt and iced tea. When I sat down to eat I realized that I had inadvertently picked out strawberry-banana yogurt. I am a huge fan of strawberry yogurt on its own, but I had forgotten how great of a combination strawberry and banana are. An added bonus was the real strawberry pieces mixed in. Usually I will shy away from "fruit on the bottom" yogurt.. it just freaks me out because it reminds me of mold, but these fruit pieces were mixed throughout so it made it seem fresher. This yogurt was just what I needed.

Since it was in the low-mid 80's this afternoon, I had to go outside. A few of us went outside to play wiffle ball and just enjoy the weather. After being outside in the heat for any length of time you get dehydrated quickly, so we decided to get smoothies [why drink water when you can consume an absurd amount of sugar?] I wanted something more refreshing so I went with the banana split, which is banana and strawberries! Crazy how these foods can haunt you throughout a day... but I'm not complaining!

I'm not too sure if I am now subconsciously drawn to strawberries, or if they are just a very refreshing summertime fruit. Either way I am certain I will continue eating them throughout the season.

PB & Strawberry

So yes this is a late night post.. but this is the time I start to think about breakfast [yes I know it may be weird, but it what motivate me to sleep at night since I'm a bit of an insomniac]. Also, I am a huge advocate for eating breakfast. Even if it is something small, just make sure you eat breakfast to get your metabolism moving!

Anywho... My breakfast at school usually consists of cereal, fruit, juice, tea, and a water [I always wake up dehydrated for some reason...] This is a lot different than my breakfast at home which usually consists of toast, yogurt, iced coffee, and a water. While I was thinking about my cereal tomorrow morning, I realized that I did not get to eat my toast this weekend! This thought processed brought me all the way to thinking about jam [everything in my brain is loosely associated and I can switch topics very easily.. it's kind of scary in there].

Now I don't personally use jam on my toast, but a lot of my friends are fans of strawberry jam on their toast. I could never bring myself to deviate from my lightly buttered toast, but I did start replacing it in my PB&Js.

Traditionally peanut butter has been combined with jelly to make the all-American lunch time sandwich, but I think this needs an update. After consistently bringing PB&Js to lunch for the first 6-7 years of school, I swore I would never touch one again. This was until I discovered strawberry jam approximately 2 years ago [I know I'm a little late on the pickup]. It seemed a little weird at first, but my friend from home swears by PB&S so I had to try, and I was hooked.

Even though I said I would never touch PB&J again, I have occasionally crossed the line every now and then, but I do enjoy strawberry jam instead of jelly any day. If anyone has not tried this combination yet, I highly recommend it and would love to hear your comparisons of the PBJ to the PBS!

Other Summer Treats

I have decided that spring officially started on Wednesday of this past week, and that it should be criminal to be inside... which is probably why I have been lagging on this blog [my appologies]. With all these outside activities I have been craving more summertime fruits.



My little sister is not as into fruit as I am, but I'm trying to make her be. On friday it was probably in the mid 70s, and since I live near the beach I decided that I needed to go sit by the water, and decided to drag my sister with me. Before we could go, I had a strong craving for mangos, so off to the local market we went.



One cart in the local market is marked "exotic fruit" which I love because I never realize all these fruits are considered exotic. These are mangos, pineapples and kiwi, all fruits I have grown up with. The best part is that it is right next to an entire cart dedicated to strawberries [which are on sale again! $1.99!] Seeing all these fruits together reminded me of another great summer treat--the fruit salad!

Now my ultimate summer beach trip treat is the fruit salad, and no salad would be complete without some really juicy strawberries. Am I wrong?? I feel like most people would have to agree that the best fruit salad would have to consist of strawberries, watermelon, and pineapple--at a minimum. Since I've been on such a mango kick recently perhaps I'll add some slices into this summer's mix!

The History of Strawberry Shortcake! [finally]

So I actually meant to post this last week, but the end of the semester has got me thinking about things that are not so related to strawberries.

However, I am excited that I finally have found the history of Strawberry Shortcake--no, not the doll (even though she was awesome)--the dessert! Although no one can really date the actual date of placing strawberries on top of shortcake, there is a long history that starts with the creation of the shortcake. Shortcake is a traditional European recipe. It was common around the time of Shakespeare, and found its way into a 1594 recipe book. Even though the cake part originated in Europe, placing strawberries on top of it is completely American. Around 1850 people topped their shortcake with strawberries, their juice, and whipped cream to signify the arrival of summer. It's earliest recipe was found in an 1847 cookbook. [http://www.kitchenproject.com/history/Strawberries/StrawberryShortcake/index.htm]

I think it is rather appropriate that "the melting pot" has brought together these different traditions to make something so tasty. Learning that it started off as a treat served at parties celebrating the arrival of spring/summer allowed me to understand the dinning hall's overabundance of it recently.

I guess everyone is getting antsy for summer, and with 3 weeks til finals it is quite all right. This also means way more strawberry eating for me!

P.S. There was a huge strawberry display at my local grocery store this weekend, and they were 2/$5. Great deals!

Strawberry Fun Facts

So the weather is not as warm as I had hoped it would be by now. I guess there is a reason for April showers...

Even though the weather has been rather dreary, I have begun to see and hear a lot about strawberries. I have noticed that in the dinning halls a dessert staple has become some form of strawberry shortcake; whether it be actually strawberries ontop of shortcake or a pudding variation. With all this strawberry shortcake around, I figured I would look up the origins of this treat.

I had a little bit of trouble trying to look up the origin of this dessert, but instead I did find a lot of fun facts about strawberries that I did not know at all! So maybe my shortcake origin post will be soon..but for now hopefully you'll find these facts interesting!

1) The word strawberry comes from "strewn berry" because the strawberry looks as though it has been strewn about the plant.

2) They are not berries or fruits! They are technically the enlarged end of the plant's stamen.

3) There are about 200 seeds on each berry

4) They have been used for sunburns, discolored teeth, digestion and gout.

5) In medevial dinners, they represented peace, prosperity, and perfection.

[all facts were taken from http://nashville.about.com/cs/festivalsnmore/a/aa051303a_3.htm]

I was a little shocked to hear about some of these facts, but I guess they could always be used as an ice breaker!

note to self: file under useless information that could come up in a triva game....

Strawberries+ [insertfoodhere]=not always a great combo.

Strawberries are a great treat on their own. Over the years people have combined strawberries with multiple other dishes that have turned out great. Such as addining it into ice cream, or ontop of shortbread. There are just too many great things that have been combined with strawberries to enhance the greatness of this already awesome fruit. However, some combinations should never have happened.

Some people may already know about my severe dislike of hotdogs. I had a very traumatic episode with this food when I was younger (ok not that traumatic.. but food poisoning is awful at any age) and ever since I have avoided them, plus the fact that I have no idea what they are made of really scares me. Ok so now that everyone knows about my dislike of hotdogs... onto the point of the story. In class today we were discussing tofu and the various ways it can be prepared. Denise then told a story of her cousins who were alternating eating tofu dogs and strawberries. It may have just been the image in my mind, but this idea is utterly nauseating to me. Tofu resembling a hotdog in one hand, half eaten strawberries with the juice running everywhere in the other hand. Not exactly appetizing.

I will say that strawberries do make a great dessert at the end of barbeque that may have served hotdogs earlier in the meal. For me at least, these two should never be combined in the mouth. Strawberries have such a unique flavor and texture on their own that definitley would not combine well with the unique texture of tofu and the artificial hotdog flavors.

In short...

+

=

NO GO!