Hat Tip

Yesterday morning, I received a video iChat invitation from Pascale, who wanted to show off her new roommate Ariel. I, in turn, brought Beatrice to the computer, and we exchanged pet stories and pleasantries.

Margaret called from the kitchen that the flat of strawberries she had bought for Saturday’s trip to Ravinia was not disappearing as fast as necessary, and wouldn’t Pascale like some? Pascale answered that what we really ought to do was make Strawberry Sauce. Margaret pooh-poohed the notion, but I queried Pascale for more details, and she explained how brain-dead simple it was (if it hadn’t seemed brain-dead simple, I wouldn’t have remembered it). And when Margaret left for her morning’s writing work at Peet’s, Pippa and I snuck into the kitchen and stealthily whipped two quarts of strawberries into sauce.

We tested it on our lunch waffles, and agreed that it was pretty good. When Margaret came home from Peet’s, we surprised her with the jar brimful of intoxicating strawberry essence. We served vanilla ice cream for dessert, topped with our own Strawberry Sauce (top secret recipe), and the afternoon of setting and refrigeration had turned our pretty-good strawberry sauce exquisite. Thanks, Pascale!

5 thoughts on “Hat Tip

  1. I’m glad your excess strawberries met a happy end. I hope your version of the recipe didn’t involve Bea as one of the ingredients that made it “exquisite!”

  2. This weekend I made rhubarb sauce — consisting simply of diced rhubarb stalks, orange juice, and sugar — to eat over vanilla ice cream, which was divine. 🙂 Pity we can’t trade jars!

  3. Another story about Margaret’s flat of strawberries: During our flight home on Saturday, I quizzed Laura about her birthday dinner menu requests. She wanted strawberry shortcake for dessert, with local strawberries, please, please. I was doubtful about finding a farmers’ market on Monday, the only day I had to shop. Grocery store strawberries might have to do. I returned home from church on Sunday to find that a quart of wonderful local berries had mysteriously appeared on our kitchen counter. The birthday dessert was delicious! So delicious that the birthday girl enjoyed some for breakfast this morning. Tell Margaret thanks.

  4. Ooops! Pascale is referring to the fact that in the first version of this post, I mistakenly linked the word “exquisite” to the photo of Bea; I meant to tag that word for emphasis, and have now changed it — but that’s why she asks about the ingredients. (Took me a while to figure out why on earth she would think such a thing!)

Leave a Reply to Rachel Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *