How many strawberries is too many?

On Saturday afternoon I was on my way home after running the ACT exam at CB when Ted called. He had just gotten back to my house after his run, and he had run past a man selling strawberries. He said they smelled incredibly good, and asked me to pick up some on my way home. Sure, no problem. I was literally about to turn down the street where said strawberry man had set up shop, so it would be easy for me to make the stop. Easy to make the stop, yes. Easy to complete the transaction...not so much. See, neither one of us could speak the other's language, so the bartering process became a bit more difficult. But what I could determine is that the man was not able to sell me strawberries unless I could buy an entire flat of them. Hmm...what to do. I didn't want to come home empty-handed, but hadn't planned on buying that many strawberries. Ultimately, I caved, gave the man my money, and carried the largest amount of strawberries I had ever purchased at one time to my car. I walked through the front door and told Ted that I hoped he was ready to eat some strawberries, and he just stared at me in disbelief. You know what one of those little green baskets of strawberries looks like? Yeah, I walked in with 18 of those in a cardboard box. What was I thinking? So, I decided that I would make a pie. I had never made a strawberry pie before, but I had made other pies, so how hard could it be? Really, it wasn't that hard, but I get anxious when I am trying out recipes for the first time, because I'm afraid I will make something that tastes horrible. Plus, there's that whole process of guessing throughout the cooking process, "Is this what it's supposed to look like?" I made sure to buy new corn starch, because the corn starch I had did not have an expiration date and I was afraid of making something toxic. I read a story a while back about a man who died because he made pancakes from an expired box of Bisquick, and ever since then I have been obsessive about checking the dates on food. Yes, I can be a bit neurotic sometimes. Ted, while he has his own eccentricities, is different, he doesn't really care about following recipies and throws things together off the top of his head. While I was fretting about whether or not the fruit sauce for the pie was turning out properly, he was putting together a tasty salad dressing by tossing together items already in my kitchen. Grr.

The pie-making process was truly a joint effort. Ted came up with idea of adding a bottom layer of jello no-bake cheesecake, so the finished product turned out quite tasty. We took one to Steve and Alison's for dinner that night, where Michelle (who is 3) declared it, "the most alicious pie I ever eat!", so I guess we did a good job. We made a second pie and gave it to his brother Nick this morning. So, between the strawberries we used for the pies, the basket Ted ate when I first brought them home, the three baskets he took home tonight for the poker game, and the basket I kept for myself, none of the strawberries are going to waste, which makes me happy. When I first placed the box of strawberries in my car, I had a vision of most of them ending up going bad and having to be tossed, so I'm really glad we were resourceful and didn't let that happen. I really wish I had taken a picture of the pies, it might have added a little pizazz to this otherwise mediocre post.

So, that's pretty much the highlight from this weekend. I'm still not confident that this blog is even remotely interesting, possibly even to myself included. But, I will keep making attempts every now and then, and perhaps one day I might even start telling people I am working on a blog in the first place.