Strawberries they're red, ripe and ready for picking.

Loaded with vitamin C, low in calories and naturally

sweet, strawberries are now at their peak of perfection. Cottle

Stawberry Farms on Ellis Road in Fayetteville expects to have plenty

of fruit available for handpicking through the first week of June.

A gallon bucket of strawberries picked by the customer costs

$7, said Trixie Williams at Cottle's.

For $2 more, busy shoppers can buy a gallon ready-picked.

Adams Farms, on west Ga. Highway 54 between Fayetteville and

Peachtree City, has more strawberries ripening and expects to add

blackberries to their pick-your-own menu in about 10 days.

According to Virginia Adams, this is their first year growing

blackberries. Adams Farms provides pickers with baskets and charges

If you prefer your strawberries picked, washed and packaged,

try Driscoll's, found at most area grocery chains. Touted as the

"finest berries in the world,"

Driscoll's are large, juicy and flavorful.

Recently, Leslie Revsin, a New York-based chef who is

known for her talent of blending ingredients and flavors in

distinctive ways, demonstrated some of her favorite berry recipes at

Cooking Light's GrandStand '99 in Atlanta. A strawberry dessert

served in a lemon-lavender syrup was prepared by Revsin in her

makeshift stage kitchen with beautiful results.

A tiny lavender garnish topped her springtime specialty.

(See recipe on page 2) "The lemon-lavender syrup has a lovely

floral quality that pairs beautifully with the sweet Driscoll's berries. It's

a perfect, unexpected marriage of herbs and heavenly

berries," Revsin said.

Cooks also can store some seasonal sweetness away for a

winter treat by freezing. The Cooperative Extension Service of

the University of Georgia (at the Fayette County Administrative

Complex) has racks of instructive brochures and flyers on the

subject. Extension foods specialist Susan J. Reynolds says, "Freezing is

one of the easiest, most convenient and least time consuming ways

to prepare foods at home... properly frozen fruits will retain much

of their fresh flavor and nutritive value. Their texture,

however, may be somewhat softer than that of fresh fruit," she says.

Strawberry jelly lovers who cringe at the caloric content

derived from sugar can spread their jelly and eat it too.

The extension office also offers recipes for jellied products

without added sugar. "Strawberry jam with pectin" makes about two

or three half-pint jars with one tablespoon equalling a scant five

calories. It calls for:

1 quart of cleaned strawberries

3 to 4 teaspoons of liquid artificial sweetener

1 package of powdered fruit pectin

1 tablespoon of lemon juice and red food coloring as desired.

Crush the strawberries in a one-and-a-half quart saucepan. Stir

in artificial sweetener, food coloring, powdered fruit pectin,

and lemon juice. Bring to a boil and boil one minute. Remove

from heat. Continue to stir two minutes, Pour into freezer

containers, cover and freeze. Thaw for use keep them refrigerated.

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