Life is Just a Bowl of Cherries...

So it all started with a grabbled voice mail from Ben’s mom who was at a conference in DC.

ME: Your mom left a message. Something about if I would be interested in…something. I couldn’t understand her.
BEN: Cherries. If we want any cherries…Everyone in the family has taken all they need. She said we could drive down there this weekend and pick as many as we wanted.
ME: (squealing) CHERRIES!?! YES, I AM INTERESTED IN CHERRIES!!!

I love cherries. There is nothing better than working your way through a bag of Bing cherries on a summer day, spitting out the seeds as you go. When the first bags of cherries appeared in the grocery stores in June, my mother and I would covet them. One summer, with the majority of her kids grown and me heading off to college, she even broke down and bought a bag of Reiner cherries (the beautiful golden cherries with ruby red accents). We had always wanted to try them, but they are typically a dollar or two more a pound than the Bing variety. I don't know if it was because they were such a special treat or if it was their own merits, but those yellow cherries were delicious. Those summers home from college, Mom would typically break down at least once and shell out the extra money for the Reiner cherries. I remember once my father brought home a bag of them for her, just because he knew she liked them and that she was hesitant to buy them; I don’t think she would have been more giddy if he had brought home a dozen roses.

When I was first trying to be a locivore last summer, cherries were one of the few things I would give in and buy regardless of where they came from. I thought that I could not give them up; that was until I saw the price of cherries this year. For weeks, I have looked longingly at Bing cherries, but I knew I could not pay $5-7 a pound for them. Over the Fourth of July, my sister-in-law Stephanie brought a bag to my parents’ cabin, and I repeatedly filled my plate with these ruby red treasures; I was more than happy to feast on someone else’s dime. When I thanked her for bringing them, my brother grunted, “Yeah, I nearly had a heart attack when I saw the price, but she already had them in the cart.” Thank goddess for inertia.

So when we were offered free cherries, Ben and I didn’t hesitate. We were in the car at 8 am on a Saturday, driving through Scooters for coffee (and a free dog treat for Sully – yes, drive-thrus are a gold mine for dogs, you don’t know this until you have a dog, but that’s another entry for another time), and we were on the road to Tabor to harvest cherries – I don’t know when this became our life, but I love it!

The cherry tree at the Morrises’ house was unbelievably beautiful. It was heavy with beautiful, bright red cherries. For this city girl, it was like something out of a picture book. To be honest, I had never noticed the cherry tree at their house before; now I think it will always be one of my favorite things about Tabor.

For the most part, Ben and I set about filling our bags quietly, not saying much and just enjoying the unusually beautiful early July morning. It was almost zen-like. I even had a mantra running through my head, a line from (the appropriately seasonal) Midsummer Night's Dream. Helena says of her childhood friend Hermia, "So we grow together, / Like to a double cherry, seeming parted, / But yet an union in partition; / Two lovely berries moulded on one stem; / So, with two seeming bodies, but one heart." There were some moments when the peace was broken – like when Gary’s old ladder nearly collapsed under Ben or when Sully apparently learned to open doors and let himself out of the house to run laps around the yard. (Which, seriously, Puppy, if you have opposable thumb capabilities, you really do need to start pulling your weight around here. It’s time to starting paying for your own “special” dog food, Mr. Sensitive Stomach!) But all in all, it was such a peaceful morning. And let me just say that, for a city girl, I was good at picking cherries; Ben was amazed at how quickly I could fill up a bag. He should have known that there is little stopping me when there are free cherries involved.

I froze the majority of our cherries whole, but with six large bags of cherries I couldn’t resist making us a few treats. Serendipitously, Cooking Light featured a lot of cherry recipes last month, so I used many of those. The weekend we harvested the cherries, my brother Tom had mentioned that you can use a paper clip to pit cherries. At first I thought I might buy an actual pitter (I’ve always wanted one), but after seeing our grocery bill for the week, I couldn’t justify $12 on another kitchen gadget. The paper clip worked beautifully (I bent the two loops into an “L” shape and used the smaller loop to force out the pits), and given the size of my Midwestern cherries, it was probably the better choice.

Cherry-Berry Jam
I froze the finish product so we can enjoy it in the dead of winter.

from the July 2008 Cooking Light. Find the recipe here. I used strawberries instead of red raspberries – just because they were cheaper.

Cherry Crisp

I made this as a dessert for Ben and I one night, and I am ashamed to admit how quickly it disappeared! We topped it with vanilla ice cream.

from the July 2008 Cooking Light. Find the recipe here.

Fresh Cherry Scones
HOLY COW! I stumbled on this recipe in a blog. I loved all my cherry goodies, but I think these were my favorite.

The recipe is here.

Cherry Pie
So if you know Ben’s mom, Kathy, you know I have a lot to live up to when it comes to pies, and when Ben tells me that the cherry pie I served for lunch with the Szmyrgalas was “outstanding," I know I’m starting to come into my own when it comes to pie baking. Unfortunately, like most things of legend, I don’t have a photo of this beautiful creation (I formed flowers on the top with excess pie dough – it really was a work of art).

Pie dough and I usually aren’t friends, but I think I’ve finally found a recipe that works for me in the St. Patrick’s Church Cookbook (from Imogene, Iowa; it was gift from Ben’s Grandmother Tackett). The recipe calls for Crisco; I tried that first, but the mixture wouldn’t set up. Then I remembered Ben’s grandma and Kathy talking about how the 0 transfats Crisco didn’t work in pie crust. So I subbed butter instead – the result was a flaky, golden crust that is not Weight Watchers friendly but is tasty.

Pie Dough
½ c. Boiling Water
1 c. Butter
2 ½ c. Flour
½ tsp Baking Powder
1 tsp Salt (if you are using salted butter, I would adjust this)
If the pie dough is for a sweet pie, I would also add a little lemon rind and vanilla

Pour water over butter. Beat with a mixer until creamy. Add remaining ingredients. Kneed the dough into a smooth, round ball. Chill 15-20 minutes. Roll between floured wax paper.

For my filling I followed a Cooking Light recipe (also in the July 2008 issue). Here is the recipe.

Because I knew I was going to serve this dessert for a Sunday lunch after church, I prepped it through step three, and then froze the pie. The first thing I did when we got home from church was preheat the oven to 375 and pull the pie out of the freezer. I brushed the egg white and water mixture over the pie and sprinkled it with sugar. Per Kathy's instructions, I baked the pie at 375 for 15-20 minutes, and then decreased the heat to 350 and baked the pie an hour to an hour and half. If you need to, you can cover the pie with foil to prevent browning. I would also put the pie on a cookie sheet to catch any drippings and keep the oven clean. The pie was ready right after we finished lunch. In addition to Ben’s compliment, 10 year old Daniel told me that “The pie was very good. I ate all of it except the gunky parts I did not like.” I like him.