after dinner sneeze

t says: This past weekend we went strawberry picking at Sparacio’s in Rosenhayn/Bridgeton, NJ.  The weather was beautiful (we were there at 9:30 in the morning) so we fooled ourselves into thinking that bending over or crouching to pick strawberries was “exercise”.  If you bring your own container, you don’t have to pay for one from Sparacio’s – not that the $1 for a cardboard crate that holds several pounds of strawberries is absurd.  The going rate is $1.45 per pound of strawberries – you get to keep on picking until you’re satisfied – no limits [that I was aware of]!

Welcome to our gym!

However, in the end, we found that the berries weren’t huge – they were kind of small-medium sized.  Apparently the large ones were picked off the weekends before – darn.

g says: Our booty is beautiful!

We did pick close to 7 lbs or so, which looks like a lot – but 2 lbs went straight into a pie, we gave some to my parents (g’s parents already have a strawberry stash), and a pound went into a strawberry-upside down cake.  Next time, we’re going to pick more so we can also give tons to our friends!

I made the cake similar to our cranberry upside down cake, as per j’s instructions.  g gave some to her coworkers today, and it doesn’t seem like there are any issues.  g did notice however that strawberries have a LOT more moisture than cranberries, so the topping (when you flip the cake) is much more syrupy.  If you do use the recipe with strawberries, attempt to dry them as much as possible before using them (next time, I might even pat them dry AFTER I cut them into slices).

t says: If this was at my workplace ... it'd be gone by 1pm for sure ...

Finally … here’s my favorite strawberry …

It's so ugly it's cute ...