Dad's Favorite Dessert

My father loved pie, but my mother rarely made one for him. He had scared her off by extolling the pie crusts of a neighbor's mom where he grew up. It's not that my father didn't appreciate my mother's desserts. Her cherry-nut cake, her bite-sized apple pastries that held their own as far as flaking went, her giant chocolate eclair--all these were world-class desserts.

But his Father's Day dessert had to be made with strawberries. So we would have either strawberry shortcake or my mom's easy Strawberry Angel Food Cake. If it was strawberry shortcake, my father asked for the cream unwhipped, and served in a pitcher so he could just pour it over the cake. With a diet like that, it's a good thing Father's Day is once a year.

Carol Kramer is a writer who lives in New York City.