Mmmm, strawberries . . . first of the year.

Yeah, they’re the crappy “bred-to-ship-long-distances” variety from SoCal so they don’t stack up to the amazing local berries we get in June that turn to compost in 48 hours, but they’re still strawberries. [notworthy.gif]

Served with freshly-made vanilla custard ice cream. Drizzled with fine balsamic and dusted with freshly-ground black pepper, they sent me into the kind of food orgasm I haven’t experienced since last berry season. BRING ON THE BLACKBERRIES AND RASPBERRIES!

Nice to see I’m not one of the few that likes to drizzle the balsamic and throw a couple of turns on the old pepper mill on top of these. [good.gif]

I like cutting them up and adding a little bit of sugar and creme de cassis… yum!

We had Mario Batali’s Panna Cotta with Strawberries, Balsamic and black pepper on Easter. Kim Caldwell posted it a couple years ago. It is available on Epicurious if you search Panna Cotta and Strawberries.

Delicious! The local strawberries from Carlsbad were some of the best I remember. The flavor jumped out of the carton.

Along with the balsalmic and pepper, grate a little dark chocolate on there too -Heaven!

Are you available? Oh, nevermind. I’m not! [imwithstupid.gif]

that sounds amazing! I’m going to have to try that this week.

I can’t tell you how amazingly good that sounds to me… it combines so many of my favorite things. I’m a panna cotta lover in a creme brulee household, so I rarely indulge in what Steve and the kids derisively call “milk jello”.