I get a little sentimental when June arrives, because it’s a month that marks both my dad’s birthday and Father’s Day.
It’s during the sixth month of the year that I remember my father more than I usually do: the outdoor birthday parties we’d have on my parents’ deck, the way he wore Naval binoculars slung around his neck while watching sailboats race on Lake George, and the unusual fact that he wasn’t all that into chocolate cake. However, Dad was wild about strawberry shortcake.
Like a lot of Americans with roots in the South, biscuits were a cherished carb of choice. And, who doesn’t adore whipped cream? The strawberries in our region were usually reaching a juicy crescendo as his birthday arrived, so it must have been a confluence of coincidence and logic that cemented this as his all-time favorite dessert.
When I went gluten and cow-dairy-free six years ago, I unconsciously sequestered Strawberry Shortcake to the underground recesses of my memory. No point in dwelling on it since two of the three ingredients involve white flour and heavy cream. Since writing writing my book, “Clean Comfort,” I’ve become much more creative in my endeavors to enjoy comfort foods that aren’t followed by a hangover. So it was a joyous day when I realized I could indeed eat Strawberry Shortcake again.
The procedure would be the same as with any other recipe I’ve made over: tastes and textures are mimicked and approximated, ingredients are swapped, and because I want to maintain a 180-pound weight loss more than I want the taste of X,Y, or Z, I agree to eat something that is hardly an exact replica of the original, but is close enough. If that’s my cross to bear in life, I got off easy.
The biscuits in this recipe are made from garbanzo beans; the whipped cream from coconut milk; the strawberries are the fresh off the farm. If you’re craving this outside of strawberry season, the frozen unsweetened kind will do.
Sure, I could make a pan of biscuits out of gluten-free flour, and you’re free to do that. Or, bake the traditional wheat flour variety. Or, as my mom is fond of doing, load up on a fresh-baked box of them via a KFC drive-thru window. I’m simply determined to squeeze as much nutrition out of food as I can. Beans have a lower glycemic index than flour, they’re ounce-for-ounce less expensive than flour, and lentils are fiber- and nutrient-rich, so there’s no contest for me.
Thanks to my new formula, I can remember my dad through his favorite dessert on Father’s Day. It’s a delicious treat. And it brings back sweet memories of my dad. And if he were here, he’d be elated that I invented such a nourishing version of his favorite dessert.