Accessories For Sid

Sid is my sourdough starter that lives in my fridge. He's about 5 months old now. He had a near death experience a couple of weeks ago and since then, I have really been more sympathetic towards him.

My family and I went strawberry picking last week for our first time EVER. We picked 20lbs of strawberries in 40 minutes. They were $1/lb. We paid $20 for our strawberries. They should've weighed us before we started picking, because I'm sure between the four of us, we ate 5lbs worth. I only ate two strawberries. It was my boys who ate in poundage.

Unlike blackberry picking, there aren't any thorny briers that scratch up your skin or clothes. There are just small, green clusters of plants and if you move the foliage out of the way, you will see under the green leaves and stalks, a red cache. It's beautiful. Red strawberries hidden under the shade of the plant, resting peacefully, waiting for someone to find them and pick them.

Pick them we did!

We took our 20lbs of strawberries home. We ate our dinner, went to see Charlie in his play at the Theater in the Grove, ate ice cream and then, at 9:30pm began the cleaning/de-stemming/pureeing/jam process. It took us me 2 1/2 hours to process all of those strawberries. It was my first time. I wasn't sure how to set up the system. I had my food processor out and started the puree process with that, but realized that the blender would hold more. I had 4 bowls to begin with but realized 2 were sufficient.

About 1 1/2 hours into the whole shebang, I had this thought: "Puree can later be made into jam. Jam does not have to be made RIGHT NOW".

Well, you might think that was a little long to take to have that thought, but this was my first time. I was a strawberry jam-making virgin. It took awhile for the  "Aha" moment to happen. If you don't have anyone there giving you advice or pointers, then it takes a little longer.

Needless to say, I hastened the process by just making puree and freezing that in Ziplocs.

I will return to the strawberry field and pick some more and freeze more puree. I will make jam in January. It will be like a Beatles song, "Strawberry Fields Forever".

Oh yes, about Sid.

Sid was accessorized (after 20 minutes of cooling from the oven) with fresh, homemade strawberry jam. The strawberry jam dressed him up quite nicely. And as ZZ Top says, "Every girl's crazy about a sharped dressed man" (bread).

The love affair has begun.
Sid was consumed within his first hour of accessorization.