superdumb supervillain: Strawberry Summer
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Saturday, June 28, 2008

Strawberry Summer


Our homegrown strawberries were gorgeous this year. But sadly, their season has already passed. They whetted our strawberry cravings but left us hungry for more. Thankfully, it's about time for California-grown strawberries to hit supermarkets all over the country. The California Strawberry Commission is estimating this year's harvest to include nearly six million crates of strawberries this year!

I remember driving through acres and acres of strawberry field while visiting my grandparents in southern California every summer as a kid. The color was amazing, but the smell of the berries was even better. And the taste! I couldn't believe how sweet they were. Huge and juicy, the very definition of luscious! The ones we got at the grocery store in Hawaii were much smaller and needed sugar when you added them to your morning cereal.

The California Strawberry Commission website is full of strawberry info, including recipes, health and nutrition, and even Strawberryville, a mini-site with facts and fun activities for kids. I am intrigued by the savory strawberry recipes, since we usually think of them as a dessert fruit. The Slow Roasted Pork Shoulder with Dried Strawberry Chipotle Chutney sounds absolutely delicious.

I had no idea how many nutritional benefits strawberries pack into such a cute little package. Antioxidant-rich and yummy, not a bad combination! I found this mention of strawberries' superheroic nutritive qualities in an article on Education.com:
According to a study published in the Journal of Agriculture and Food Chemistry, there's more hiding in that little bunch of berries than juice. The little gems are chock-full of phytochemicals such as flavonoids, tannins, stilbenoids, phenolic acids, and lignans… Forget the undecipherable terminology. What you need to know is this: they fight cancer.…Strawberries are particularly useful against oral and colon cancers.

Pass me a pint of strawberries, pronto!

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