Fore St. Strawberry

I missed it again--Strawberry Season! Seems I missed it last year, too. Does it get shorter and shorter every year, or do I get busier and busier. Darn! I'm stuck buying Driscoll's strawberries from CA in the supermarket. They're OK but without that full, unmistakably strawberry flavor I anticipate every June.



But all is not lost. The strawberry season in Maine starts a little later than here in Massachusetts so I took advantage of that fact when we went to one of my favorite places to eat, the Portland Maine restaurant, Fore St. I knew local strawberries would be featured on the dessert menu. The shortcake was buttery and light and the strawberry flavor was wonderful. It was accompanied by a lime milkshake which I cannot figure out. It was a good milkshake, but a little unnecessary--like two desserts instead of one. I ate them both.

I remember when Fore St. was the kind of restaurant you felt you had discovered--a dark, industrial-looking local hangout, the kind of insiders' place where you almost felt like you needed to know the secret knock to get in, that happened to have a talented chef who knew the value of eating locally way back when. On a recent Saturday night we had a choice of a 5:30 or a 9:30 reservation--and the season hadn't even started; and it was raining and miserable in Portland. Fore st. is so discovered. And to tell you the truth, my halibut was a little dry.