I hesitate to even share this tip, only because I feel very passionately that Canadians should always try to buy ripe local produce and avoid imported, out-of-season fruit and veggies whenever possible. That being said, sometimes even local produce has a bad year and isn't as flavourful as usual. So if you want to jazz up your fruit, here's how. I'm using some imported (terrible) strawberries as an example. Alone, they taste pretty bland and their texture is a bit mealy. They're also ginormous, but that's another topic (which I also blogged about and you can read about here). Slice or quarter them. Now here's the secret. Remember how I mentioned that many delicious things contain a perfect balance of sweet and sour? Well, adding a bit of each of those flavours will really boost the flavour of any fruit by highlighting its naturally occurring sugar and acid. Sprinkle a little lemon juice and sugar over the sliced fruit and toss to coat. Let stand for 10 minutes or so for the juices to start coming out and the flavour to start developing. This is also called macerating. Instantly, the fruit is more flavourful. The colours come out, too - see how much redder the strawberries are? This is really a great trick for any type of fruit (except ones that will discolour or get mushy, like bananas). Photography: Annabelle Waugh