This is Alpha, the first-born, when he was 2YO.
This is Beta, the second-born, when he was about 2YO.
This is Gamma, the third-born, when he was about 18MO.
Berry Good Present
Jul
1
2010
This is a little late, but it doesn’t really matter.
For my birthday, my wife bought me a box of chocolate-covered strawberries. Not just any chocolate-covered strawberries, but the gourmet kind.
What makes them gourmet?
The price.
And they were very good.
There were a variety of flavors.
And the berries were wee not-so-wee huge:
That metal object on the right is a quarter. A regulation-size US 25-cent piece.
And I liked their packaging. They were humorous without going overboard.
There was one subtle part:
And one not-as-subtle part:
But…
(There seems to be a downside to just about everything)
You have to eat the strawberries by the end of the second day, otherwise they go bad. It’s not like a regular box of chocolates, where you can eat a couple a day and enjoy them all week. By the third day the strawberries were starting to be not so good anymore. They weren’t moldy or rotten (we left them in the fridge). I thought they were starting to ferment. My wife said they tasted “zippy”, which I thought was an accurate description.
My experience is that strawberries need to breathe. If we store strawberries in a sealed container in the fridge, they go bad a lot quicker (such as overnight) than if their container has some air holes. There seems to be a balance, because leaving them completely uncovered lets them dry out too much.
Other people have other ideas about how to store strawberries. They seem to involve not breathing but draining. Either set the strawberries in a strainer/colander so that they aren’t resting in their juices or store them on paper towels so the juices get absorbed.
Either way, I think chocolate is not the optimum coating for preserving strawberries. It neither breathes not drains. So the strawberries don’t last so long.
In conclusion, if the only problem is that you have to eat them fast, that’s not a bad problem to have.
Oh, and the reason my wife bought them is because she had a coupon for $10 off, and she also got free shipping. They were still expensive, but not ridiculously expensive.
Then they came to the valley of Eshcol and from there cut down a branch with a single cluster of grapes; and they carried it on a pole between two men, with some of the pomegranates and the figs.
Numbers 13:23
This little article thingy was written by Some Guy sometime around 6:13 pm and has been carefully placed in the Food category.
July 1st, 2010 at 7:26 pm
Yum. I still have your birthday card. Maybe I’ll just save it for next year. That’s recycling, which is good for the planet, right?
July 2nd, 2010 at 10:31 am
What are the chances that if I send your wife my birthdate…
July 2nd, 2010 at 12:38 pm
I can kill two birds with one stone here – send your birthdate to Charity and she can send you a card.
Perfect!
Oh wait, you wanted the strawberries…
November 25th, 2011 at 9:06 pm
I like your blog! Very nice! I especially like your profession of faith on your “About” page, and the Bible quotes! God bless you! :)
As for the strawberry storage issue… As someone who has a strawberry website, I’ve thought a lot about storing strawberries.
For chocolate-covered strawberries, you can’t freeze them without the strawberries becoming mushy when they thaw out.
If you make your own, then you can peel and wash the strawberries; allow the berries to air dry; and thoroughly coat the berries with chocolate. If they are coated really well, and kept in the fridge, they may last 4 to 5 days.
When the skin of the berries is retained, the bruises are retained, too; so are the little crevices around the strawberry “seeds”, and all the mold spores in those crevices. Companies that mass-produce strawberry treats don’t typically remove the skin for several reasons, such as the time involved; the loss of fruit weight (“product is sold by weight, not by volume”); the need to dry the fruit before the chocolate will properly adhere to it; and the fact that customers like to see the skin. So they trade expediency and aesthetics for shelf life.
Just a few thoughts of mine. :)