strawberry season

April in North Texas is Strawberry time, so Madame and I always head to Gnismer Farms on Bowen Rd. in Arlington to pick them. Today was this year's pilgrimage, and what a wonderful day it turned out to be.

I had previously decided on Souvlaki for dinner, especially when I saw lamb shoulder at $1.99/lb this morning.

So I bought a chunk of lamb shoulder and boned it, cut it into 1 inch cubes and set it to marinate with olive oil, garlic, mint, thyme and oregano. It is so good having the fresh herbs to hand.

This afternoon we drove down to Gnismer farms to pick our own strawberries. It was a coolish ut sunny afternoon and there were several families already picking theer. It was wonderful to see how wxcited the kids were when they found ripe fruit. Also to see their happy faces and strawberry juice stained clothes. We picked about 14lbs of strawberries - some for freezing and some for eating now. Once we had paid for them, we engaged the farme owners in conversation to find out what else they had.

That opened the motherlode. We bought lettuce (by going down the rows of plants and pointing to the ones we wanted). Also they dug onions and leeks for us, found some honey comb taken from the bees on the property. What a treat.

So for dinner (and leftovers for Madame all week), we had the souvlaki (oh yes I made tzaziki for that, recipe in another post) and grilled eggplant, mushrooms, onions, leeks and cauliflower that I had bought before visiting the farm. A bottle of a Beaujolais Villages and we were happy campers.

It was so good to connect again with the growing of the food we ate and to marvel at the earth's bounty.