Strawberries, cheese, and tea for a belated birthday

Yesterday (October 1) would have been my Grandmother's birthday. As many of you who read my blog know, my grandparents raised me from birth. My grandmother was always tiny, wearing a size 1 dress most of her life. Eventually, she gained a bit of weight and on her death, we dressed her in a size 3 dress. She never worried about her weight, but ate sensibly, never feeding my Grandfather and me packaged food. Much of what we ate during the summer months came from our garden, which my Grandfather tended and my Grandmother cooked or prepared.

Her one weakness was pie. She loved pie and baked one each Sunday. If we had company, she always learned what the person's or persons' favorite pie was, and prepared it for them. That is why I would rather have good homemade pie than any cake you could ever give me. I got that love from her, although I never learned to make the flaky pie crust she made so well. Although I have no pie today, I am celebrating with strawberries, a fruit she dearly loved. But like me, she only liked strawberries plain, never in pie or cut up and served in sugary juice or with real whipped cream over homemade shortcake, like my Grandfather preferred it.


To celebrate, I paired the strawberries with Baby Bell cheese. I love these little wax wrapped rounds of goodness with anything. I'm also celebrating this belated birthday with a cup of hot Apricot Brandy loose leaf tea I got at the Spice Merchant and sharing the day with what's left of my dear tea Tuesday friends. I think the apricot is why this tea is cloudy. Cloudy or not, I do like the orange color it produced. I think my Grandmother, who was British through and through, would have approved!

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