Strawberries for Wimbledon

It is halfway through Wimbledon fortnight - and therefore I reckon it is practically compulsory to eat strawberries.
The end of Wimbledon will also coincide with my move to London. So it was symbolic in all kinds of ways when I finally got around to doing pick-your-own strawberries this weekend. I went to AG Meale at Wayford Bridge in north-east Norfolk, and thought about the differences between rural life and life in a big city.
I was quite restrained - we managed to come away with a reasonable number of strawberries rather than punnets and punnets of them, though this was partly because it was late in the day and other people had got to most of the strawberries first!
To add to the symbolism, my parents were visiting, so we had strawberries from their garden on the edge of London to add to the Norfolk strawberries. Good things obviously grow in London too!

Eton Mess is one of my favourite strawberry dishes, but on a scorching hot day like today I think a sundae might just have the edge over it.
One of the beauties of a sundae is that you can vary it according to your preference, but the basics are ice-cream, fruit and whipped cream. This is not an occasion when you need to be restrained though - it is definitely a case of the more, the merrier.

For the ultimate strawberry sundae:

Ingredients

Good-quality strawberry ice-cream
Whipped cream
Meringue nests or pieces
Strawberries
A chocolate Flake or similar

Method

Take half of the strawberries and mash or liquidise them into a sauce and leave the rest whole (or halved / quartered if they are large). Taste and add a little sugar if you think it needs it. Layer all the ingredients in your serving dish (a very tall glass per person is certainly the best thing to serve it in, but a bowl will do) breaking the meringue into pieces if it is not already in pieces. Finish with whipped cream, decorate with the last few strawberries and stick a Flake into it. Enjoy greedily.

Cheat's strawberry shortbread sandwich

Here is a really easy dessert that you can enjoy while watching Wimbledon on television.

Take good quality all-butter round shortbread biscuits, a large tub of clotted cream, and strawberries, hulled and halved/ quartered.
Spread a biscuit generously with the cream and top it with strawberry pieces. Place another biscuit on top of that and apply more cream and strawberries. You can carry on to make even more layers if you have the inclination and the engineering skills!