Long days, strawberry shortcake nights

During the strawberry’s brief yet vibrant season, I try to eat them every day. I eat them with balsamic vinegar. I eat them in pies. I eat them in salads. I eat them with granola. I eat them with yogurt. I eat them with cream. And, of course, I eat them by themselves. But my favorite way to eat strawberries is in that classic concoction: strawberry shortcake.

Strawberry shortcake is a simple dish—a sliced biscuit, lightly sweetened strawberries and fluffy, whipped cream are its only requirements. I grew up eating this as my mom loves to make strawberry shortcake and hers is the best. And I’m not alone in my opinion, as I’ve seen others sigh when their shortcake bowls have been spooned clean.

The sad thing, however, is that when I was a kid I didn’t realize I was eating proper strawberry shortcake. Randall’s Supermarket sold round yellow sponge-cake cups and called them shortcakes. (They were only a about an inch high, so they were, indeed, short). And because I was gullible, I was mislead into believing that they were the real deal and what my mom was serving me was incorrect. Not that it mattered, because I still preferred her shortcake. The packaged sponge-cake kind never satisfied as the juice and cream turned the cakes into a soggy mush; you need the heft of a biscuit to carry the weight.