By Alexi Zentner
Strawberries are divine, particularly when they are fat, ripe and fresh. In Missouri, May and June are the best months for strawberries. If you have the chance and the desire, pick some yourself at Lakeview Farms (St. Peters) or Eckert’s (Belleville), or grab a flat at the grocery store. (Our produce is remarkably good, particularly when compared to that of some other cities, such as Chicago.) Clean and hull your berries and sprinkle liberally with vanilla sugar. That’s all you have to do to create a heavenly dessert. And vanilla sugar is easy as a breeze: Slice a vanilla bean open lengthwise, drop it into an airtight container with two cups of superfine sugar and let sit at least overnight. (Superfine sugar seems to work better—you can make your own by running granulated sugar in a food processor for a few minutes—though you can use regular sugar with perfectly acceptable results.) The sugar takes on the breath of the vanilla bean, and sprinkled over your strawberries, the hint of vanilla is lovely. You also get a secondary benefit: If you let the strawberries sit for a while before you eat them, the sugar draws out some of the excess water, concentrating the strawberry flavor.
