Kristie and her good friend and neighbor, Jackie, were hippie mamas together. Jackie taught her how to sew easy cover-up tops out of Indian bedspreads and tropical prints. They were both pregnant together. Each woman had a baby girl – every woman’s dream – perfectly behaved little blondies with big blue eyes.
It was strawberry season, so with both of their daughters on their backs, they loaded up supplies for a bus trip to where the pickings were good – just at the other end of the county. The bus ride took about an hour and then a short twenty minute walk carrying the babies and pulling the wagon full of crates and boxes they needed for the berries.
They left early enough in the morning so they knew they would have enough time to go pick, come home, and start boiling up some jam, preserves, syrup, pies, and other delicacies.
They weren’t worried about the girls, they had full bonnets on each of their tow heads to protect them from the sun while they slept in their backpacks. The women were both breast feeding and the girls were too young to eat much solid food yet.
They got to the fields late in the morning and they immediately bent over and began harvesting the lusciously ripe berries. Of course they ate a few while they worked the rows they had been assigned by the foreman in charge.
By the time one hour had passed, the women had already filled all the possible nooks and crannies of their receptacles and eaten at least a quart of berries each. The girls were beginning to fuss, so they packed everything up and caught the bus back into town. They fed the babies on the ride home sitting with the Radio Flyer between them filled with triple stacked crates of the delectable fruit.
The whole bus smelled of ambrosia so over powering that no one came to sit near them. Besides, both of the women had actively nursing babies sucking on some very large milk jugs.
As soon as they got home, they put the girls down to nap and began processing the fruit. It was a decadent month of strawberries: jams, pies, cakes, syrups… they even tried them with beans and rice, spaghetti, and of course, peanut butter. The greatest invention to come out of the strawberry debauchery was the Neptune Salad – a great summer dinner idea!
The Neptune Salad
Bibb lettuce cleaned and washed
1/2 lb 30 count shrimp peeled and deveined
one avocado sliced
two kiwis peeled and sliced
one basket strawberries deflowered and sliced
2 green onions finely sliced
arrange ingredients on two plates
drizzle with Marie’s poppy seed dressing
Enjoy!
(First published 5/7/12)
