{"id":2498,"date":"2023-05-18T01:06:55","date_gmt":"2023-05-18T01:06:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gmachronicles.com\/?p=2498"},"modified":"2023-05-18T01:08:22","modified_gmt":"2023-05-18T01:08:22","slug":"in-scarlet-glory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gmachronicles.com\/index.php\/in-scarlet-glory\/","title":{"rendered":"In Scarlet Glory"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hello, Gorgeous.<\/p>\n

So you\u2019re back, are you?\u00a0 Yes, here you are, in all your tempting ruby glory.\u00a0 I can\u2019t get enough of you, and I don\u2019t care who knows it.<\/p>\n

There are those who may say (sing it, Andy Williams) that the year-end holidays are the most wonderful time of the year.<\/p>\n

Perhaps that\u2019s true, but right here, right now, record one vote in that category for Strawberry Season.<\/p>\n

These red crown jewels of cuisine, the tiny ripe ones sweet enough to make you weep on first bite if you weren\u2019t too busy reaching for another\u2014they come from right up the road this time of year, if you are lucky enough to live in the right places.\u00a0 In our neck of the woods, the Strawberry Epicenter is Portland, Tennessee, and on farms stretching out and around the rolling hills of north-central Volunteer State.<\/p>\n

Why Portland?\u00a0 The definitive local source is silent on and agricultural\/scientific bases for the local strawberry boon.\u00a0 According to the website for Portland\u2019s annual strawberry extravaganza<\/a>, \u201cin the early 1900’s Portland’s big industry was \u2018strawberries\u2019.\u00a0 In addition to the large number of farms and agricultural businesses growing the country\u2019s finest berries, there was a creating factory, a fruit processing plant, a canning factory, and a freezing facility producing strawberries for Breyers Ice Cream and other national brands.<\/p>\n

It continues: \u201cDuring the peak of the strawberry business Portland would ship out 30 railroad cars a day. \u00a0Portland started hosting the Middle Tennessee Strawberry Festival in 1941…Each year in mid-May the festival brings 40,000-plus people together to celebrate the importance of the strawberry industry to Portland\u2019s heritage.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thirty freight cars a day?\u00a0 That’s a train worth hopping, like the hoboes of old in search of better times and places.\u00a0 That \u201ccountry\u2019s finest berries\u201d part just might reflect regional bias; who knows?\u00a0 Google reports, as Google tends to do, a maddening variety of conflicting answers on where to find the best strawberries in the U.S.\u00a0 Here\u2019s our answer to Google\u2019s eternal indecision:\u00a0 The best strawberries are the ones that are grown right up the road, wherever you may be.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, if you have even one eye open, you cannot miss the arrival of the Most Wonderful Time.\u00a0 Like a royal coronation or the Super Bowl, it is heralded with street banners, celebrations, and featured recipes in every possible media outlet.<\/p>\n

The most authentic fans wait patiently for the arrival of the local gems in glorious early summer, disdaining the hard and flavorless imposters that perch in other seasons in the produce section coolers at any grocery store.\u00a0 Too large, off-color, or, worst of all, hollow inside (shuddering is the appropriate response here), these are easy to ignore, for they are the poorest imaginable substitutes for the true, local, delectable thing.<\/p>\n

Strawberries are tasty testimony to the eternal truth that small is so often superior.\u00a0 The very best of these scarlet prizes are small, blood-red, no orange tones.\u00a0 They are firm, not too hard (underripe), and not too soft (overripe).\u00a0 We the faithful (read: picky) scan container arrays at farmers markets and in neighborhood produce shops, scrupulous in selection.\u00a0 We are indifferent to how long this examination requires, and we pity those who don\u2019t understand it\u2019s importance.<\/p>\n

At this height of the Blessed Season, the chefs of YouTube, the Food Network, and beyond present us with countless recipes to feature our treasures during this brief annual spectacle.\u00a0 There they perch atop a salad, snuggling amidst Southern pecans and local goat cheese.\u00a0 And here they are swimming in a cocktail, the scarlet tones drawing the eye like hummingbirds to red geraniums.\u00a0 My, they photograph well.\u00a0 A favorite local restaurant, Nashville’s fabulous Midtown Cafe<\/a>, added strawberry cake to the dessert menu, its lovely pink cream icing proudly holding up the fresh, naked trophies atop each slice.\u00a0 It is enough to haunt your dreams.\u00a0 I awake wondering how I can finagle a return visit before the season ends.\u00a0 One must have one\u2019s cake and\u2026well, you know what I mean.<\/p>\n

About those recipes.<\/p>\n

\"\" Admire them as you may, but there is a great secret among the most indefatigable of the Strawberry Tribe.\u00a0 We never make it through those recipes.\u00a0 Because we are bound to the only recipe that matters:\u00a0 Pop in mouth immediately.\u00a0 Follow with another.\u00a0 Continue with as many as possible, before the Blessed Season ends, all too soon.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hello, Gorgeous. So you\u2019re back, are you?\u00a0 Yes, here you are, in all your tempting ruby glory.\u00a0 I can\u2019t get enough of you, and I don\u2019t care who knows it. There are those who may say (sing it, Andy Williams) that the year-end holidays are the most wonderful time of the year. Perhaps that\u2019s true, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":2499,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,12,1],"tags":[252,251,250],"class_list":["post-2498","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-humor","category-mid-life-adventures","category-uncategorized","tag-portland-tennessee","tag-strawberry-recipes","tag-strawberry-season"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmachronicles.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2498","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmachronicles.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmachronicles.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmachronicles.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmachronicles.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2498"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gmachronicles.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2498\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmachronicles.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2499"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmachronicles.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2498"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmachronicles.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2498"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmachronicles.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2498"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}