Innocuous-looking box of strawberries.

This morning for breakfast I washed and put on my family’s plates some beautiful big Driscoll’s strawberries. They looked perfectly ripe and not at all moldy or mushy – a normally overlooked plus you learn to appreciate here, given the extra distance they travel on hot cargo ships (ok, so they’re probably refrigerated, but I bet the fruit has periods of hot dock-sitting). Anyway, Husband ate one then asked me where I got them in a tone that implied the answer should be ‘the dump.’ I answered ‘Marina Market’ (which usually has good produce that lasts a while – and they had better, at those prices). “Well they taste like fish.” What? “Impossible” I replied (although in the back of my mind, I realized that was not at all impossible considering our lives.) Husband does exaggerate sometimes, so I dismissed it, and even put a few of the berries in BG’s lunch. Five minutes after Husband walked out door with BG to take her to school and go to work, I cleaned up breakfast and popped an uneaten strawberry in my mouth. Sure enough, it was like how I imagine a fish market might taste if you took a bite out of it. And not a nice sushi bite either– a days-old fish oil-soaked-wooden-counter-type bite. Nasty, and it continued with a long oily aftertaste. I immediately called Husband and told him that he was completely right, I was sorry I doubted him, and to please throw away BGs strawberries when they got to school. This story is frustrating on several levels: one, I had to admit I was wrong after I told Husband he was wrong (and implied he was ridiculous); two, I had to throw away a 6 dollar box of strawberries; and three, I had to eat a fish-tasting strawberry. I think I would rather have had a strawberry-tasting fish.

The cargo docks where all our food arrives on Sundays, including our fishy strawberries. I do wonder how it happened...