Are you cooking anything this weekend?

I am considering treating myself by using the first strawberries of the season in a special way.

I got the idea from the ladies at Garden Collage when they shared with me the details of their beautiful launch event for their new shop (check the shop out here – I have so many things I want – and lucky for me, my birthday is less than 2 weeks away!). The event included a Floral Salon where guests could make their own flower crowns and basically was just about the prettiest pop-up event I’ve seen around.

(Hint, hint to my family — the black pom pom othello basket  is adorable and the stoneware pickling pot is something I’ve been wanting for ages.)

But back to the strawberries….

Last year I experimented heavily with my excessive berry harvest and fell in love with adding vanilla bean and bourbon, and honey bourbon, and sometimes all of the above… all at the same time.  These concoctions will certainly be repeated this year.

But the Garden Collage event featured a strawberry and meringue recipe from the cookbook titled Food and Beer  that used fresh strawberries but added rosehip vinegar to both the maceration and the meringues themselves.   Strawberries and roses – what could be more lovely – this is the basis of my special treat.

Except I can’t find a place to buy rosehip vinegar (except here – but I don’t currently live in the UK).  I’ll certainly see about making some later this fall… but for now I think experimenting with rosehip syrup (which I happen to have in the cupboard) combined with apple cider vinegar will have to suffice.  I’m going to try adding it to the basic sugar and strawberry maceration as well as to the base of my favorite pavlova (which is just a giant undercooked merengue that, in my opinion, tastes wildly better than a tiny dry chalky merengue version).  I’m expecting great things.

Happy Memorial Day Weekend!

-Rochelle

image by Andreana Bitsis for Garden Collage