Red Fruits of Summer

So. It's summer. It's too hot to cook. But there's all that lusciousness at the greenmarket, blueberries and peaches and raspberries and apricots and plums and strawberries and maybe even gooseberries. And you want to use it.



Instead of heating up the kitchen with a 400° oven for that shortcake I told you to make, all you do is hull the strawberries and cut them in half, add the currants, add the raspberries, add a tablespoon of sugar. Toss it gently and put it aside until it's time for dessert - an hour or two will do. What you want is for the strawberries to give up some of their juice - the sugar helps that along by pulling the juices out of the berries. Then, all you need is some good vanilla ice cream. A blob of ice cream covered with the juicy berries? That, dears, is summer.