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| Strawberry Shortcake - last night |
One of the enduring memories of my Mother is her strawberry shortcake recipe.
My Mother loved strawberries. My dad would always set aside a part of his vegetable garden for Mom's strawberry patch. Mom would lovingly plant her strawberry plants in the fall in her section of Pop's garden.
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| Pop and Mom up in his garden - 1958 |
Come spring Pop would place the black netting over the ripening strawberry plants to protect them from the marauding robins which liked to put one peck into the biggest, ripest and juiciest strawberries. I can still remember Mom saying with great indignation "Why do they always pick the best strawberries?" Each year she was in a race to get those juicy strawberries before the birds got to them.
Mom would come home from her job at Pepperridge Farms (she worked in the frozen layer cake division) and go up to her strawberry patch and pick her pampered strawberries.
She would pick as many as a dozen pints before she ended for the day. Then she would take them down to the house and pick over them again, saving the best to take to work and sell (at $1.25 a pint) to some of her co-workers at Pepperridge.
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| Me with Mom up in her strawberry patch - 2000 |
She would set aside some strawberries to make strawberry shortcake. The rest of the strawberries she would wash, slice, sprinkle with sugar, place in containers and freeze. She would keep those frozen strawberries and make strawberry shortcake for the rest of the year.
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| Mom watching her strawberries grow in her garden - 2001 |
Last year I found a strawberry field nearby in Lewes. I took myself down there on a fresh spring day and picked me a batch of strawberries. Just like my Mom did years ago, I sorted those strawberries when I got home. I set aside some to use on my cereal. The rest I froze. I froze a lot of them.
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| Lewes Garden Center - Pancoast Lane - May 2011 |
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| "Pick Your Own Strawberries" at Lewes Garden Center - 2011 |
The recipe pictured above is Mom's strawberry shortcake recipe that I made last night after I returned home from work. There is nothing fancy about this recipe but it is perhaps the best dessert I've ever had in my life. It not only tastes good (and it does) but it also brings back my loving memories of my Mom.
May is only one month away. You can bet I'll be back at that strawberry patch in Lewes to pick me another batch of strawberries and I'll be thinking of Mom.
Betty's Strawberry Shortcake
1 slice pound cake (preferably homemade)
vanilla ice cream
strawberries (frozen or fresh, sprinkled with sugar)
Place cake in bottom of bowl.
Place two scoops ice-cream on top of cake
Drizzle defrosted strawberries on top of cake and ice-cream
Enjoy!
