Anyone fortunate enough to have gone strawberry picking will have probably come away with three valuable lessons...

1. A strawberry...straight from the plant to your mouth...is infinitely more flavorful than one found in any supermarket
2. The amount of back-breaking bending that is needed to pick even the most meager amount of berries is truly depressing (and rather painful)
3. The cardboard containers which house your fruit are practical...pleasingly functional...yet destined to be stained by berry juice and thrown in the trash as soon as you get home

The first two lessons cannot be amended...freshly picked fruit will always be the most delicious...and an hour or two of toe-touching will generally cause anguish...lesson three, however, can be circumvented if one uses china farmer's baskets. Impractical in the field, perhaps...yet infinitely pleasing in the kitchen.