mixing in the garden
Can we tell you a strawberry inspired story? There was a little girl once who loved to find plants, shrubs and flowers in her garden and take them and mix them all up in jars of various sizes and colours, with different amounts of water and washing up liquid and anything else she could find, in a little yard outside the kitchen door she called her “kitchen”.
One day, she was bored with her recent finds and decided to look harder in some of the inhospitable parts of the garden. Searching deeper and deeper into the wild bushes at the bottom of the garden, she found a patch of strawberries hidden under a crooked thorn bush. She scratched herself badly picking them, but scrambling on her tummy in the dirt, she managed to pick a few dirty measly looking strawberries and cheerily dumped them in her pail. Delighted, she ran back up the path to her little yard and started to mush up the strawberries with her muddy mixture, but all that was left at the end of the mixing was a brown mess. Dejected, the little girl left the mouldy strawberries and went inside.
strawberry fairy
Later that evening, bathed and cosy in bed, as the little girl was falling asleep, she squinted sleepily at her flower fairy bedroom wallpaper and was amazed as she saw one of the fairies come to life, dancing across the bedroom wall, up and up to the ceiling. Stunned, the little girl watched as the fairy swirled and danced above her. Gradually, the fairy glided softly down to her and whispered in her ear, “Look harder next time. You only found the strawberries we threw away!”. Amazed, the little girl turned to speak to the fairy but she was gone in a flurry of pink dust that sent the little girl straight to sleep.
In the morning, the little girl jumped out of bed, desperate to run down to the garden and find the real strawberries the fairy had spoken of. She run as fast as she could to the end of the garden but could not find the crooked thorn bush. She squirmed and pushed around in the dirt but only came out of the bushes scratched and dirty. She turned slowly back up to the yard, tears welling in her eyes. Rubbing them with a pyjama hand, she sniffed and pushed a dirty curl out of her eye. As she dragged her heels back up to the yard, ready to go inside and admit defeat, she heard a tiny tinkle. A tiny tinny sound that was almost not there. She turned and as she did, she glimpsed the most wondrous sight. A large bunch of fresh, round red strawberries was sitting on the little box she used in her pretend kitchen. She let out a cry of delight and rushed to examine them. They were perfect. Bright and juicy; the ideal strawberries for mixing into her latest concoction.
She grabbed a bowl from her little shelf and poured some water from her father’s garden tap in with the strawberries and stirred them round and round until all that was left was a wonderful strawberry fruit tea looked so beautiful. At a loss as to what she could call her tea, she run into house to find her mother to ask for some help. In her hurry, she managed to knock over the box of fancy French things her Auntie had brought round yesterday. Picking up the box, she glanced at the lid and noticed they were Strawberry Macarons. Inspired, she slid the box on the table and ran back out into the garden. Picking up the cup of strawberry tea high in her little hands, she announced to the garden that she had created “STRAWBERRY MACARONS TEA” in the honour of the glittery fairy that had appeared to her the night before.
That little girl was Anna Louise Simpson and this tea is her creation – SIMPSONS STRAWBERRY MACARONS TEA – TRY HERE
SIMPSONS TEA 