Strawberries

Oh my gosh - I am soooo excited. There are loads of fruits and vegetables coming into season in the UK at the moment. I popped into the supermarket earlier to pick up some salad for my lunch tomorrow and also found British strawberries. And they taste delicious. For anyone outside the UK who is reading this, if you ever visit our beautiful shores then I recommend you try strawberries whilst you're here.
Although I love all fruit (apart from grapefruit, I could never get my head round that), strawberries hold a special place in my heart. When I was a kid growing up in Blackpool, my parents used to grow strawberries around an old corrugated iron swimming pool that stood in the middle of our garden. And boy did they grow. We used to have buckets and buckets of strawberries every week in the summer, they grow so well here. One of my fondest memories of my chilhood is standing on a stool in the kitchen, helping my mum to wash and hull them all.

Woo hoo! New food!

I'm so happy this week. Salad crops are starting to come into season in the UK. I've been eating salad all week - fresh tomatoes, cucumber, peppers, and I bought some amazing lettuce and spinach at Roath Real Food Market yesterday. It's so nice to have a change in diet. Don't get me wrong, I love winter vegetables, but it does get a bit tiresome by April.

Come on Spring!

 Although I've found it a lot easier than I thought to eat local, seasonal food, I must admit that at times it gets a bit boring. Around this time of year, there's a bit of a gap in foods that can be farmed in the UK, so the range of food is limited. As much as I like carrots, butternut squash and potatoes, I can't wait for spring to arrive so I can experiement with some different ingredients.