We have been feasting on strawberries. Each day, I walk to the strawberry seller at the end of our road and buy a kilo for 5 euros. A third of these I take with me for the children to eat on the way home from nursery. The rest we devour at the end of our evening meal – a great bowlful in the middle of the table, green stalks cast off on our dirty plates.

One of the most evocative fruits (though pedants among you will say they are not really fruits at all – bearing their seeds on the outside and being only accessories to these), summer without strawberries is hard to imagine. Quartered and sugared with a dollop of cream, or rinsed and left with the stalks on, the sight of these plump red jewels conjures up an array of images: a hot day in the fields with friends; the cool shade of the living room with the thwack of the tennis ball on the telly; scones with Granny as the summer rain drips down outside the art gallery window; pudding in the late fading light in the back garden; one more glass of warm Pimm’s by the river before the university holidays start. Continue reading →