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!

Strawberry Varieties

During our class discussion yesterday, we talked about different varieties of apples and tomatoes. That got me wondering if there was such a thing as a "type" of strawberry. I always thought the same one's I ate at my house were the same ones everyone else across the country was eating. Then I remembered that long stemmed strawberries were popular around Valentine's Day for dipping into chocolate.

With at least one other variety of strawberry in mind, I decided to research and find out how many different varieties of strawberries there actually are. In this particular article I found, there are over 30 different types of strawberries! They vary from what kind of soil they can grow in, to resistance to particular diseases. Who knew there were so many varieties! The article also said that new varieties are being created every year. So biotechnical engineering also pops up in this fruit. I wonder if anything has not been bio-engineered?

I was going to just copy the list into this post...but that would clearly take up pages. Here is the link to the article. http://gardening.about.com/od/fruitsberriesnuts/a/Strawberries.htm

Meet Clancy. A new strawberry developed by Cornell University. (Looks pretty standard to me!)

Good Morning Strawberries!

Well since I happen to be the only one in the house with the week off, I get to be the family driver? (Well for today atleast). So I was up at a rediculous time so that I could take my mom to work and my sister to school (this is what happens when you want to borrow a car for the day). The good thing about being awake during the breakfast hour is actually getting to eat breakfast!

I am usually not a fan of any kind of breakfast food, so when I do eat breakfast I tend to keep it simple with cereal and fruits. Today I started to crave my summertime breakfast treat; granola topped with plain vanilla yogurt and sliced strawberries. I tend to get stuck in breakfast food ruts, and I litterally ate this for breakfast for 10 weeks straight last summer.

The great thing about this summertime treat is that it can also double as an afternoon snack as well (parfait anyone?). As soon as I thought about using strawberries in this way, I realized that strawberries really have snuck into most breakfast foods. Besides just sliced into breakfast cereals, they can also be found mixed into yogurt, breakfast bars, as well as juices.

With all this sneaking into foods, perhaps we are getting more servings of fruits than we think we are? Sadly though I had no strawberries, yogurt, or granola in my house, but I did have a mango and toast!

Prices & the approaching strawberry season!

So I have been neglecting this a little bit and I appologize for that. I have had several topics I wanted to post about, but I just never got around to actually sumbiting them! Now that spring break is coming up next week, perhaps I'll have more free time to experiment with strawberries...

If you haven't noticed, over the past few months I have been trying to do strawberry themed recipes. Obviously these recipes include fresh strawberries, so this led me to become more aware of the prices of strawberries.

The actual strawberry season is late May into June. This means we are in short supply of these berries throughout the winter months, and rely on imports from places such as Mexico for our "fresh" strawberries. Now that we're almost half way through March there has been a destinctive drop in prices, as well as brands that the supermarkets are putting on display.

For my strawberry cupcakes in February, I went to a local Wal-Mart to purchase strawberries, just because I figured they would be cheapest (and because I had other random shopping to do). I walked in expecting to be paying a high price for a carton of strawberries, but to my surprise they were only $4.48. I was plenty happy with this price because it was the week of Valentines Day, as well as the middle of a winter month.

Going on a side note off of the prices of Valentine's Day strawberries, Dr. Cohen also sent me a link to another blog (http://www.chow.com/grinder/4746) that talked about a certain strawberry from Japan that we being auctioned off at a ridiculous price. For a box of 7-12 berries, it cost $45. That definitiley made my $4.48 look like a steal!

As the weeks went on I was in and out of supermarkets and grocery stores for different reasons (now with my eyes looking at price tags of the produce section). One week a lot of the fresh fruits were on sale, and I saw that cartons of strawberries were on sale for 2/$4.00 or $2each. I thought this was a crazy sale and imediatley wished that I could think of something to make with these. Sadly I was in a rush to get back to school and left the sale (although my mom did go back later).

For my past recipe I did make a return trip to the same grocery store and was saddened to see the $2 sale was over. Even though the prices did go back up, it was not significant. A carton of strawberries is now aroung $2.50. So, over a period of about four weeks, the prices of strawberries dropped a little over $2. This price fluctuation amazed me.

Now, I would also like to note where these strawberries were coming from. The original box I bought at $4.48, was imported from a farm in Mexico. This same farm was the supplier during the $2 sale. I would have to assume this was their last import and wanted to make room for their new batch. Last week when I went and got my $2.50 strawberries, they were now from a different farm that was located in Florida. I have deducted that this significant, and rapid, decrease in price is from cuting back on traveling distance.

What does all this mean? Well, it does mean that the distance they must travel increases the price...but it also means that it's almost strawberry season!!! So now I'm in "summer mode" and thinking of all the strawberry juices and fruit salads I can make. Either way start preparing for lower costing fruits, and I will keep you updated on the decline in prices of strawberries!

Mint Chocolate Dipped Strawberries

[now with pictures!]

So last week I felt like I continually encountered strawberries and mint flavored food items. Thursday I had a cupcake with mint and strawberry frosting. Friday I had strawberry ice cream mixed with mint chocolate chip ice cream. It was everywhere! Thats when I got the idea for dipping strawberries into mint flavored chocolate. I had never heard of anyone doing such a thing before, so I decided to go for it.

Mint Chocolate Dipped Strawberries

1lb of Strawberries (1 carton)

8oz. of Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips

1 tsp. of Mint Extract

First, you must prepare the strawberries. Rinse the entire carton and dry using a paper towel (this alows the chocolate to stick to the strawberries better). I left the stems on for this, but you may cut them off if you prefer it.

Next get a setting place ready for the strawberries to cool on. I, again, used a doubled piece of tinfoil placed ontop of a cookie sheet. (Using tin foil or parfin wax sheet makes it easier to peel off the strawberries with out ruining the chocolate coating).

Take your 8oz. of chocolate chips and melt them in the microwave (or double boiler if you have one). I suggest using higher quality chocolate for this recipe, just because half of what you will be tasting is the chocolate.

Once the chocolate is melted so that there are no lumps and that it is almost pourable, add in the mint extract. If you just want the mint flavor to be more subtle, try adding a half a teaspoon to begin with and add to taste from thereon in. If you're like me, and want the mint to be very noticible add in the full teaspoon (perhaps just a splash more).

Now you can dip your towel dried strawberries into the chocolate. Place each one onto the sheet and put them into the refridgerator to cool. It should take about 5-10 minutes to cool depending upon how much chocolate is on the strawberries.

If you are feeling creative you can use any remaining chocolate to decorate your strawberries. I used a ziplock bag to pipe a chocolate design onto the strawberries. By placing chocolate into one bottom edge and snipping off the end, this creates a make-shift pastry bag.

This was a very new taste for me, I think it may be an acquired taste. It did take me two strawberries to really appreciate the flavor combination. If you are more of a timid eater (as my mom is) do not judge it on the first bite, they are pretty good!

Sweet Toppings

So I have found myself in a kind of strawberry ice cream craze lately (and by craze I mean I've repeated the flavor twice in a month). So yesterday I decided to go for strawberry ice cream yet again. Ocassionaly the dinning hall will provide toppings for your ice cream. These days are amazing. I do enjoy ice cream on its own, but sometimes the toppings...well...top it off!

So they had the usual, jimmies/sprinkles (chocolate/rainbow), chocolate syrup, caramel, whipped cream, chocolate chips, nuts, etc. Then among all of these delicious treats was a new addition (or perhaps I just never noticed). Strawberries! Well..strawberries that had most likely been covered in sugar and was now sitting in some kind of strawberry juice.

I guess it isn't too much different from putting strawberries in your cereal, but I have never done it so it seemed a little foreign to me. Even though I do enjoy strawberries, I figured it might be a little difficult to balance it's sloppy goodness ontop of my cone. Then I had to ask myself how readily others would top their ice cream with these strawberries? What type of ice cream would they use it to top? Just vannila or other flavors as well? Who knows, maybe I'll have to experiment later (any excuse to justify eating more ice cream!)

Special K...Take 2

This past weekend was President's Day long weekend. Even though I enjoyed the time off, it has thrown off my posting schedule. One good thing about being home was being able to eat "good" food. "Good" food to me is atleast being able to pick out a cereal that I like to eat.

The usual cereals at my house are either Frosted Flakes or some kind of Kashi, both of which I enjoy. To my surprise I found a box of Special K with strawberry. Even though I found out before that Special K was pulling the wool over our eyes with their cereal bars, I do still enjoy their brand, and decided to give their actual cereal a try.

Even though they may have covered up their "strawberry pieces" in their bars, they stayed true to strawberries in their cereal. The ingredients list on their cereal is easier to read and allows you to quickly find what exactly is in their cereal. These strawberry pieces are actually freeze dried strawberries!

I now give my consent to continue eating Special K cereal. My only advice would be to allow the strawberry pieces to soak in the milk for a minute or two. Otherwise they are slightly crunchy, and for me atleast I am not ok with my fruits being crunchy. I hope you all enjoy your cereal!

Strawberry Shortcake, Banana Split!

Well, Happy Valentine's Day to everyone!

I figured I should probably write on Valentine's day, since it is pretty much an ode to the strawberry. Even though I may not enjoy this holiday, it doesn't mean I can't enjoy all of the tastey treats!


For anyone who lives on campus will be able to back me up when I say it was a strawberry extravaganza in the dinning halls. Even though I was not into the holiday, they so got me on all the strawberry desserts. There was actually an entire section that was devoted to the color pink. Since pink is one of my favorite colors (ask anyone who knows me, or has seen my room), it made me immediately drawn to the area.

While I was searching through all the pink treats, I happened upon an interesting one. It was supposed to be a whipped-cream take on strawberry shortcake. It is hard to better such a delicious dessert, but I was willing to give it a try. It was a whipped cream/mousse combo that was light and strawberry flavored, with vanilla whipped cream and pieces of cake and real strawberries mixed in. I'm not going to lie, it did not taste anything what I expected, but it was still delightful. It was much lighter than the original strawberry shortcake, but now I'm on a quest for some true strawberry shortcake...

When they say Imitation, they mean it!

So after I made my cupcakes (which are almost all gone) I decided to try and break the mystery of what exactly strawberry extract is (or any extract for that mater). So I went to my little bottle of extract, and because I apparently do not read labels, I found that it was actually imitation extract! Well that really gets me far.


So I tried to do a little snooping online to see what exactly the extraction processes is. I came across exactly what the process is for vanilla extraction, and I would have to assume it would be the same for almost any flavor.


"Pure Vanilla Extract is produced exclusively from beans grown on the estate. After curing, the beans are carefully chopped to increase their surface area and placed in stainless steel percolators. A solution of ethyl alcohol and purified water is circulated through the chopped beans to extract the flavor. A proprietary cold process is used to extract its beans. This minimizes the loss of delicate flavor components. The extraction process usually takes two to three days. The Pure Vanilla Extract is then aged in special holding tanks for as long as two weeks, prior to being filtered and boltted" http://www.silvercloudestates.com/vanilla_process.aspx


So now that the myster was solved for me, I decided to figure out why mine was imitation. So for "pure" extracts, the only ingredients would be extracts of strawberries, water, and ethyl alcohol. This is the list of what is found in imitation strawberry extract:
"water, alcohol (27%), extractives of strawberry, apple juice concentrate, lactic acid, caramel color, natural and artificial flavors, propylene glycol, and fd&c red 40"

Even though the fact that the list is mainly ingredients that are chemicals, what worried me the most was the apple juice. To me apple juice has a very distinct flavor, and I'm not sure how that would help bring out strawberry flavors. Maybe it's more cost effective to produce more bottles of extract? I just do not know.


Well all I do know is that the majority of the strawberry world is a lie. First they get you with the cherry pieces in Special K, and now with apple juice in strawberry extract. Who knows what it will be next, but I bet you I'll find out!

Heavenly Chocolate Dipped Strawberry Cupcakes

With Valentines day this week, I decided that I was going to devote this whole week to posting about valentines related things. To me the classic Valentines day treat would have to be chocolate dipped strawberries. It is strange to think that this is probably one of the biggest selling holidays for strawberries, and they are out of season. Either way, I still love chocolate dipped strawberries.

Although I am no Martha Stewart, I do love baking. I don't tend to go too far creatively with actual recipes, but I do like making a showy presentation (if i can). So I decided that I was going to try to make a Valentine's Day cupcake, inspired by strawberries. Now this was my first attempt at creating my own design for any type of dessert. I used angle food cake as the cupcake (because I havent had it in forever and I thought that the lightness of the cake would compliment the heavier chocolate), topped it with chocolate-strawberry frosting and a chocolate dipped strawberry piece.

Heavenly Chocolate Dipped Strawberry Cupcakes

1 box of Angel Food Cake mix

1lb of Strawberries (a carton)

8oz. of Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips

12oz. of Milk Chocolate Frosting

1 1/2tsp. of Strawberry Extract

Start out preparing the strawberries by rinsing and cutting out the green leaves. Then slice the strawberries into a 1/4 of an inch thickness and set aside. Continues this for the entire carton of strawberries.

Once all of the strawberries have been sliced, prepare the chocolate dip. Place the chocolate chips into a bowl (you will only need about 3/4 of a bag) and microwave/double boil the chocolate until it has metled with a drizzly consistency.

The strawberries will be a little slippery, so you may want to wipe them off with a paper towel. Then dip them half way into the melted chocolate. Place them onto a sturdy piece of aluminum foil (this way you can peel them off later, rather than breaking the chocolate coating). For extra support while carrying, place the aluminum first on a plate or baking sheet. Place in the refridgerator for approximately 15minutes, or until the chocolate coating has hardened.

While the chocolate dipped strawberries are drying in the fridge, you can make the cupcakes. Follow the directions on your box of angel food cake mix (mine just had to add 1 1/4 cup of water). Once the batter is prepared, place muffin cups into the cupcake pan. Fill each cup 1/2-3/4 the way with the batter. Place in the over for 15 minutes on 350.

Next prepare the chocolate frosting while the first batch of cupcakes are in the oven. To do this, take your can of milk chocolate frosting. Add in the strawberry extract and stir. (Depending on your brand of frosting, you can add more or less extract to taste. I would suggest adding 1tsp at first, and then judging from there).

Once the cupcakes have cooled for 5 minutes out of the cupcake pan, you may frost. Place a chocolate dipped strawberry (..or two) and enjoy!

(This can yeild up to 30 cupcakes)

I enjoyed these, and thought it was a good first try for a recipe. The angel food cake is not so sturdy, but it is fun to eat, and still tastes good!

If you are daring enough, and want to attempt to make these, let me know how yours came out!

I Scream, You Scream...

We all scream for ice cream!

It is so true though, it could almost be said that it is "unamerican" to not like icecream. It is the staple in an elementary school kid's diet. There are just so many flavors to choose from!

Personally, my childhood is filled with memories of walking down the road with my parents to get a strawberry frappe from the local ice cream parlor (which is sadly no longer there). So naturally when I saw that there was strawberry ice cream at the dinning hall this evening I imediately thought of my childhood summers (..right after I screamed "strawberriess!!!")

Even though I may have caused a small scene in the dinning hall I was just so excited because I was almost positive I would not come across strawberries in any of my daily activities. I personally thought that strawberry ice cream as a favorite flavor was only a phase that younger kids go through before they realize the amazingness of chocolate. Apparently I was wrong because the industrial sized container of strawberry was gone and the chocolate had barely been touched in comparision.

By following foods, I am beginning realize I take a different approach to eating foods. For my ice cream instead of just trying to get as much in my mouth in the shortest amount of time, I found myself savoring it, and trying to disect the flavors with my tounge. In this experiement I have concluded that what we think is "strawberry" flavored is nowhere near what strawberries actually taste like. The actual ice cream tasted very sweet, creamy, and echoed that "natural strawberry flavor" that everyone uses in their products. What was interesting was when I ate one of the actual strawberries. It was not as sweet as I expected; it actually was bitter in comparision to the sweet creaminess of the actual ice cream.

In short I have concluded that we've been brainwashed. Ok maybe that was a little extreme, but we do not know the true flavor of strawberry. We can claim it as our favorite fruit, but for most of us it is only our favorite when doused with spoonfuls of sugar. Perhaps Mary Poppin's did know what she was talking about. "Just a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down...in the most delightful way!"

Tea can be berry good!

Now I don't consider myself too much of a tea drinker. I don't know many brands or flavors beyond Lipton and Red Rose. Even though I may not be a tea connoisseur, like many of my friends claim to be, I do enjoy a good tea after classes.

Yesterday afternoon it was a little breezy, but still nice out. A wonderful setting for afternoon tea. My roommate just opened a new box of Celestial Seasonings tea and we decided to try the Wild Berry Zinger. I'm personally a fan of any Zinger tea (because I'm too lazy to find milk and I don't need any for this), but my roommate was not too fond of it. Of course I took it off her hands. Although it did need a little more sweeting (I have a little bit of a sweet tooth) it was really good. I was nont really sure what kind of berry would be used in this tea, but my first guess was blueberry and raspberry. To my surprise I actually found that strawberries were used in it as well! (Of course its "natural strawberry flavor" though)

So this is one unexpected place to find strawberries, and a nice surprise at that. Now that this is the second time I've come across "natural strawberry flavor" I'm on a quest to find out what exactly this means....

What's so "Special"??

I'm not going to lie, it may be a little difficult to find much about strawberries during the winter, but that is why I've decided to look into foods that claim to have strawberries in them. One of these such products is Special K bars. "The perfect dieter-on the go breakfast bar with only 90 calories! Now in Strawberry ((naturally and artificially flavored))" This sign is what got me wondering about what they mean by artificial flavoring.

Generally, American society takes everything for face value. "It says it's 90 calories, and can make me lose 6lbs in 2 weeks? Then it must be healthy!" Healthy, until we read the fine print. To me atleast, Special K has been a brand that would use natural ingredients and set the standard for healthy living. Then again, why would I trust a pre-packaged food item?

After quickly glancing down the side of the box, trying to sort through 50 plus ingredients I found what I was looking for "Strawberry flavored fruit pieces". Now what does that mean? Well according to Special K these "fruit pieces" consist of "sugar, cranberries, citric acid, natural strawberry flavor with other natural flavors, elderberry juice concentrate for color, sunflower oil". Im glad to know those little red specs I've been eating are actually cranberries mixed with a bunch of other non-strawberry flavors... opps there is some natural strawberry flavor in there too (whatever that means).

Maybe Special K has banked on the fact that if you tell us the red spec we are eating is strawberry, we won't second guess it, or maybe they're really to blame. In the end I think we only have ourselves to blame in this matter, we're the consumers and if we really wanted something fresh we should probably head to our local farm.

"Strawberry Fields Forever"

For my sociology class "You are what you eat" we were asked to follow a particular food. If you could not guess by now, I have chosen to follow strawberries. Fruits in general have been my favorite food group. At one point in my life I actually asked my mom if I could be a "fruit-etarian". Well it seems we need more than just fruits to survive, who knew!
Although I do enjoy all types of berries, strawberries are my number one. They are that one food that you know the spring and summer season has begun. Through this "journal" I am hoping to see the other uses of strawberries throughout the year, and how different people and cultures incorporate my favorite berry into their diets and lives!