Love. Love. LOVE. Bentons are ready at the markets in the Willamette Valley. I had to buy a half-flat yesterday (this year’s prices, omg!) to put up a batch of no-pectin strawberry black pepper basil jam, inspired by Christine Ferber. Bentons might be the lightest in color of the strawberries, so they make ruby red jam. The taste is gorgeous: light yet complex, not really a true, musky, old-timey strawberry, but rather a little burst of sun.
And speaking of sun, where is it? I’m getting worried about my tomatoes.
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21 June 2009 at 5:31 pm
I’m not surprised about the prices, I heard they were estimating a 20% loss in the crop during those bad thunderstorms. The lack of sun made a good weekend for Black Sheep Gathering though, nice and cool for the sheep!
22 June 2009 at 7:42 am
Aha, that makes sense. But still, wow. I hope the caneberries weren’t damaged. Mine look ok. Then again, my strawberries looked ok, too.
22 June 2009 at 10:30 pm
For strawberries we go to River Bend Farm. The best site I can find for them is http://www.lanefood.org/directory/lgd.php?entity=53. I forget what kind of strawberries they have but we picked some of the last on Sunday. I will try to get the phone number for you. This year they were charging 7$/bucket for you-pick and 26 for a full flat picked. I hope the tomatoes get the heat they need. Last year I had to buy tomatoes to make salsa. :-(.
12 May 2010 at 7:41 am
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