I'm one of those people who can eat just one or two small squares of chocolate and put the rest away for later. Usually, 24 or more hours elapse before "later" occurs. Because of this, I have a reputation for having incredible willpower.

I have a confession to make: I don't have willpower at all. For whatever reason, I can walk away from chocolate, but I cannot resist the luscious, seductive taste of fresh fruit.

I could cheerfully eat four bowls of fruit salad in one sitting. I have eaten four bowls — cereal bowls, not dainty little dessert bowls — of fruit salad at one sitting. Any concept of portion control I might possess flies right out the window when I'm faced with the combination of fresh berries, cubed melons, a diced stone fruit or two, and maybe even, bless me, cherries.

Later, of course, I pay for my lapse with an insulin spike, blood sugar crash, and massive cravings. Also, headaches, bloating, and weight gain. Not fun.

Portion control is a big part of what makes maintaining a low carb way of life possible. One of the most common misconceptions about the low carb way of life is that you can't have fruit. Of course you can have fruit! The idea, though, is to be mindful of which fruits you are eating (grapes are definitely out; you may as well eat jelly beans), and how much fruit you're eating.

This brings me to strawberries... I love strawberries and could easily down a pint without thinking about it. This time of year, they are abundant, reasonably priced, and very tasty. They deliver more vitamin C than one orange! And they offer you 20% of your daily value of folic acid. Plus there's only about 8 net grams of carbs in an entire cup of sliced strawberries! Nutritionally, they're winners. The question is, how do you work them into your diet in a controlled way, so that you won't over-do it? Obviously, fruit salad is out of the question for me.

Strawberry Shortcake — that assembly of a sweet biscuit; sliced, sweetened strawberries; and whipped cream, is the quintessential taste of summer, with portion control built in! The version below provides balancing fats and protein along with the sweet fruit, so it mitigates any immediate cravings the berries may trigger. I'm hard-pressed to think of a more ideal food combination. (Well... there's pie, but that's a topic for another column.)

When the berries are at their peak, I could cheerfully eat this every day. The net carb count of the final product is about 8 grams. You'll find the portion size to be quite generous. It's so generous you might want to make two dozen tiny scones instead of 12 plump ones, so you'll end up with a more reasonably sized dessert. Either way, they make a delightful part of a nutritious breakfast, too!

Strawberry Shortcake
12 servings