foodperson.com

I love strawberries, and local strawberries at last are becoming widely available in these parts. Raw, fresh strawberries are wonderful almost any way you eat them:

• straight
• sliced and sugared
• doused with cream
• dredged in powdered sugar

Sometimes, though, it’s fun to gussy them up. Strawberry shortcake is probably the most popular way-and on a sweet biscuit, not spongecake, please. But I also love a strawberry pie. I don’t make strawberry pie too often; it’s just too easy to to eat them another way. My dad is a pie lover, though, so I’m keen to make a strawberry pie for Father’s Day. This one seems to concentrate that marvelous strawberry flavor. Eat it and weep.

Heavenly strawberry pie

• 1 cup graham cracker crumbs (about 18 single cracker squares)
• 1/2 cup pecans
• 5 tablespoon butter, melted
• 2 pints whole strawberries, washed and hulled, divided
• 1/2 cup water
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 1/2 tablespoons cornstarch
• Juice of 1/2 lemon
• Whipped cream, for garnish
• 8 whole strawberries, for garnish

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. To prepare crust, grind crumbs and walnuts in food processor until coarse crumb texture. Add melted butter and mix with hands. Press over bottom and sides of a 9-inch pie pan.
2. Bake 6 to 8 minutes, or until browned slightly. Set aside to cool.
3. Crush 1 pint strawberries in 1-quart saucepan. Add water, sugar and cornstarch, and cook, stirring frequently, over medium-low heat until mixture boils and is clear and thickened, about 10 to 15 minutes. Let stand until cool enough to touch. Stir in the lemon juice.
4. Arrange remaining pint of whole, hulled strawberries in pie shell, pointed ends of strawberries up. Pour cooled strawberry filling over whole berries. Refrigerate 2 to 3 hours, or until filling is set.

Serve garnished with whipped cream and whole strawberries.
Makes 8 servings