4th of July, and my sometimes insensitive sense of humor

First off Happy 4th of July!

I hope you all had a wonderful day filled with fun, family, friends, good food, and fireworks! I really love this holiday, and not just for the fact that it makes me yearn for Old Navy, American Eagle Outfitters, Gap, and Martha Stewart's patriotic creativity.

I am seriously so blessed to live in this country! (I put that part in just for you Val.) But, truly I am. Saturday morning I attended the Provo City parade, and although I do not personally relish the parade itself per se, I love to see the way that so many people are brought together to celebrate the freedoms we all enjoy. I also love to watch my little cousins sitting on the curb, three little boys sitting in a row clapping, laughing, and scrambling for the candy that gets thrown from the passing floats and cars. Seriously so adorable!

Well after the parade we adjourned to my cousin Ashley's house for a little BBQ with the fam and friends. Now the way family gatherings involving food play out in our family is that everyone gets assignments or signs up to bring part of the meal. Today I volunteered to bring dessert - confession I like to bring dessert if I can because it is the course I can most relate to, so I kind of hog it...sorry. Anyway, I told Ash I would bring dessert and then set to the task of coming up with the perfect patriotic dessert to bring.

Lucky for me, not so much for my waistline, my loverly friend Shem offered the idea of making one of her family's favorite desserts. It is genius! You make pie crust, for me that involves buying the Pillsbury pre made crust and unrolling it, bake it on a cookie sheet until cooked, it takes about 7-9 minutes in a 425 oven. Before baking the crust I scored it randomly with a paring knife to make it easier to break up, as well as pricking it with a fork all over to prevent bubbles and sprinkled it with granulated sugar.

Once the crust is baked and slightly cooled break it up into bite sized, or a little bigger, pieces. Now you will prepare your fruit. Today, in keeping with the holiday, I used sliced strawberries and whole blueberries that I tossed with sugar and a little lemon zest - but you could seriously do this with any fruit. Put a good portion of broken crust in a bowl and top with many spoon fulls of fruit.

Now, to truly complete the dish, you pour heavy cream over it all. Not whipped cream, the heavy cream before it is whipped up. Then you dig in! The berries are sweet and tart and the crust soaks up the cream to make a slightly mooshy blob of happiness. Following my short affair with this dessert , I decided that I would heretofore call this "Oklahoma Style Short-Cake". When I announced this decision Ashley looked at me with an expressions that can only be described as slightly appalled. Somehow when I said "Oklahoma Style Short-Cake" she heard "Local Homeless Style Short-Cake". Now for reasons that escape explanation this was instantly hilarious, maybe it was having to get up so early to be at the parade at 9, maybe it was the sun we had been liberally exposed to, but whatever it was we laughed long and hard about it. We are freaks like that.

So what, you may ask, is the point of all this? I will tell you; make Oklahoma Style/Local Homeless Style Short-Cake today, you will love it! Then while you are devouring this delightful dish contemplate this great country we all live in.