Strawberry Season

It's summer and strawberries are in abundance right now. When young in Malaysia, strawberries and cherries were like a magic fruit to me. Not seen often, and it supposingly posseses an extraordinarily sweet taste. I remembered being really excited to go to Cameron Highlands, a cool mountainous area whose climate supports growing strawberries. It mustn't have been in season, because I didn't see any. That was then, things are different now. Two years ago when I went back to Malaysia, I brought two punnets of strawberries home for my family. I felt really foolish when I went to the local supermarket Tesco and saw a whole pyramid of strawberries for sale. So much for being uppity - 'you can't get it there, so I'm bringing this back to let you try it'!

All my childhood desires of eating strawberries were fulfilled once I reached Aust. I had a rude shock when I tasted my first strawberries bought from the local supermarket. Some strawberries are actually not sweet. Store bought strawberries are even sour or does not have much taste to them. I only eat them dipped with honey. I started believing that all strawberries are not sweet. Until this year when Gaz brought home some strawberries given to him by his customer. They were organically grown at home. It seems that strawberries are hardy plants, almost like weeds and it looks like many Australians like to grow them at home because Gaz's customers took turns bringing bucketfuls into the shop distributing it to anyone who would take them.



These are the strawberries we were given. They are gigantic and aesthetically unpleasing. But goodness me, my fridge smells like the sweet sweet scent of strawberries everytime I open it with them in it. The taste is so unbelievably sweet, and it is very juicy. So that's what a REAL strawberry should taste like! I got so hooked that I've started growing my own. Hopefully in time I will be able to reap the fruits of my labour!