Strawberry

Let me tell you about strawberries, and you'll never squeeze one at the market again without thinking.

Pick up a strawberry and look at it before you do anything else. A day or two on your counter won't make it sweeter — what you bought is what you get. So look for deep, even red, right up to the shoulders near the cap. Smell it — a good strawberry tells you what it is before you bite, sweet and a little wild. Pale near the stem, skip it. It might blush a bit more in the bowl, but that's just for looks.

Some people say a soft strawberry is the ripe, sweet one. No! Press a berry that's gone soft and it gives way under your fingers, leaks a little at the seams, smells thin instead of sweet. That's not ripeness, that's a berry past its moment. Let your eyes and nose tell you about sweetness, and let softness tell you only how much time that berry has left.

Chase softness instead of scent and color, and you'll come home with mushy, leaking berries, having squeezed every good one at the stall and bruised it in the process.