Until you have tasted the berries grown in this locale, you haven’t really ever tasted a true strawberry.  No supermarket strawberry has ever come close to this delicacy.  Fly on over; it’s definitely worth it.  I guarantee you’re gonna like the way it tastes. (Yuk yuk, George Zimmer in the news this week.)

Here’s a wonderful painting of strawberries, accompanied by cakes and cream–not to mention porcelain, silver, glass, clear water and many types of  linen–by the artist John F. Francis (1808-86).  Francis is a favorite still-life painter of mine.  He had great mastery of painting the still-life and would have painted this lovely image of the spring-time delight around 1850. I love its slightly archaic quality.  He was showing off his skill in capturing all of these different textures.

Think back to a time of no refrigeration and you get a sense of how sweet this annual celebration would have been.  A fugitive pleasure, the taste of fresh strawberries.

And, on a totally different track: did you realize that it stays light in Seattle until at least 9:30 p.m. in the summer?  Because I didn’t!  But it does.

We have had lots of warm and sunny weather here, including today.  But yesterday it seriously rained.  I have always thought there is just no place more beautiful in summer than Seattle.  I still think that.

I love that I can leave my home in Madison Park and follow Madison Street all the way from Lake Washington to Elliot Bay in Puget Sound.  Water view to water view.  Very picturesque.

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