Good Ole Michigan

I've been up in the mitten state for almost a week now and besides the lack of humidity and urban living the big difference is the incredible availability of fresh berries. Everywhere you go up here you run into a farm or a market peddling fresh spring strawberries (small purveyors selling their berries out of the back of a pick-up truck is a common site along the county roads of Western Michigan). Cooking for the Winstons this week I've been using strawberries for everything (they've been good sports about it for they're blueberry people): salads, coulis for ice creams, tarts, glaze for chicken, etc.. Those of you who are forced to shop among those plastic pints of "cardboard" Driscoll's strawberries at Schnucks, Straubs or Dierbergs know what I mean when I talk about the allure of berries for sale mere hours after they were picked. I'm a sucker for those make-shift farmstands of locally grown produce, I'll almost always buy some of everything (provided the quality is there) and figure out what to do with it when I get back to the kitchen. The great thing for those of us up here in Michigan is that we have local blueberries, raspberries, sweet corn, apricots, peaches, etc. to look forward to. Missing all of you but not the humidity. Cheers.