Southampton - For months, my three year-old son Jackson has been ordering strawberries with his pancakes at the diner. And for months, he has been taking a bite only to spit them out saying yuck, yuck.

He's right of course. The strawberries at our local diner are barely strawberries at all. They are the same strawberries stocked year-round by all of the big grocery stores. They are hard little nuggets of red-colored cardboard, hollow and white in the center. Almost flavorless and more tart than sweet.

Jackson is right. They are yuck in the extreme.

And you see, Jackson loves strawberries. Real strawberries. And we picked up our first pint at our farm in Riverhead, Garden of Eve Organic Farm. I refer to it as our farm because we are members of the CSA program there and visit every week during the season to pick up our weekly allotment of vegetables, fruits and what I consider to be the best local eggs on the North Fork.

Strawberries are in season, folks. Go out and buy some. This first pint was eaten largely out of hand, but there are a million things you can do with fresh, sweet strawberries which are red all the way through, by the way.

There are all the old sweet standbys, including strawberry shortcake, strawberry muffins, strawberry ice cream (which I particularly fond of, see recipe below). But I am also a fan of more savory applications, including this fun little appetizer I dreamed up the other day (based on various things I have had in the past elsewhere).

Strawberry-Goat Cheese Crostini

Ingredients

 • Good crusty bread, cut into two or three bite slices
 • Fresh local strawberries, cleaned and diced
 • Soft goat milk cheese, such as that found at Catapano Dairy on the North Fork
 • Balsamic vinegar
 • Mint or basil, chiffonade

Reduce the balsamic vinegar in a saucepan over medium-high heat for 10 minutes or so, just until it thickens a bit. Let it cool.

Brush the bread with good olive oil and grill until lightly charred at the edges.

Spread each piece of bread with some of the goat cheese, sprinkle on some of the strawberries, drizzle with the reduced vinegar and shower with a little of the basil or mint. Serve.

Fresh Strawberry Ice Cream (from Epicurious.com)

Ingredients

 • 1 3/4 cups heavy cream
 • 3 (3- by 1-inch) strips fresh lemon zest
 • 1/8 teaspoon salt
 • 2 large eggs
 • 3/4 cup sugar
 • 1 lb. strawberries (3 cups), trimmed and quartered
 • 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

Special equipment: An ice-cream maker and an instant-read thermometer

Combine cream, zest, and salt in a heavy saucepan and bring just to a boil. Remove from heat and discard zest.

Whisk eggs with 1/2 cup sugar in a bowl, then add hot cream in a slow stream, whisking. Pour back into saucepan and cook over moderately low heat, stirring constantly, until slightly thickened and an instant-read thermometer registers 170 (do not let boil).

Immediately pour custard through a fine sieve into a metal bowl, then cool to room temperature, stirring occasionally. Chill, covered, at least until cold, about two hours, and up to one day.

While custard is chilling, pour strawberries with remaining 1/4 cup sugar and lemon juice in a blender until smooth, then force through fine sieve (to remove seeds) into chilled custard. Stir pour into custard.

Freeze in ice-cream maker, then transfer to an airtight container and put in freezer to harden.