Strawberry Heaven

On Sunday I took the cute guys oldest granddaughter, she's nine, to her first farmer's market with the promise we could paint plates afterward.

On the way we listed her favorite fruits and then played - If you were a color, what would it be? Pink. If you were an animal? A cat. Holiday? Christmas. Food? Ice cream.

At the market we tasted grapes from eight different vendors; green grapes, Concord, champagne. Purple grapes the size of peas. We tasted freestone and white nectarines, peaches, plums. We tasted strawberries.

"How is it," I asked each time.

"Good. When are we going to go paint plates?"

I started looking for more exciting fruits but only found another nectarine. She nodded her head before I asked how it was and headed for the next fruit stall. I bought a melon from a grower with a sweet crop I'd had the week before, making a game of smelling them before choosing. That lasted a minute and a half.

At the last row of vendors I pinched a cartoon perfect strawberry and handed it to her. She took it, bit into it. I was scanning the remaining vendors for my favorite peppers and exotic fruit. When I looked back she was smiling, licking her fingers.

"That's the best strawberry I've ever had!" Her voice was animated.

"It's organic," I said. I couldn't help it. We were both smiling. She reached for another one. I wish I'd reached for the camera.

We walked away with baskets of strawberries, eating them from the bag, setting them between us in the car on the way to the plate painting store. We almost brought them into the store while she painted a cup for her Dad.

We ate strawberries on the way home and again when we cut off the tops at the sink filling a periwinkle blue bowl with them, our fingers and lips stained red.

And I would have to agree; they were the best strawberries I've ever had too.