My local grocery store is a rather inadequate one, but local, especially on yet another bitterly cold day such as this one, wins out over high quality and far away. They don't stock frozen strawberries except in syrup, so I've given up on the idea of making strawberry compote to go with the dark chocolate pudding I'm making for dessert tonight and will simply gamble on the strawberries-in-syrup being appropriately edible and the whipped cream turning out too.

For those of you who may think I'm expecting too much of a local grocery store, they don't have whole peppercorns or coarse salt either. We received a lovely pair of salt and pepper grinders for Christmas and I need to make it to a different grocery store so I'll have, say, salt and pepper to use in them.