Bowl of Cherries

Unless you’ve never visited here before, you should know that I love cherries. If you’ve ever posted a cherry recipe on your blog, chances are I’ve left a comment somewhere along the lines of “That looks awesome, I love anything with cherries in it!” I practically have cherry juice in my blood. I think I was weaned off breast milk and onto cherry juice. It’s just always been a part of me. That’s because my grandparents have a cherry orchard and every summer, (except this past one, tear) I’ve worked in the orchard, picking, sorting and selling cherries. This year the season wasn’t very long and I was busy with school and work and sadly didn’t make it to Niagara. I was lucky though that my aunt and uncle delivered a basket of cherries to me after they made the trip so I at least got a taste of my favourite fruit. I savoured every one of those cherries and ate them all myself without sharing. But it wasn’t enough! I’ve been going through cherry withdrawal lately and it’s not pretty. I’ve been getting the shakes and everything.

Most years I gorge myself on cherries when the season comes, plucking them straight from the tree and always making sure to tuck a few baskets worth into the freezer to enjoy later on. I didn’t get that opportunity this year and for the first time in my life I had to buy cherries. A little piece of my soul died as I handed over the money to buy cherries that had spent time on a truck and hadn’t been hand picked with love and care by myself or a family member. My soul died, but my taste buds rejoiced as soon as I washed the cherries and began popping them in my mouth. Béa of La Tartine Gourmande remarked on a recent post of hers that she’s been walking around with noyaux, (pits) in her mouth all day lately and that’s exactly the way things should be during cherry season. And that’s the way things are when I’m in the orchard, a mouth full of pits, cheerily spitting them out wherever I please. It’s much harder to spit pits out, willy nilly, when you live in an apartment, I had to at least make an effort to aim for a bowl or garbage pail. I even tried to freeze some of the cherries that I bought but when I ran out of fresh ones I raided the freezer before they even had time to get cold. Sigh, no cherries during the winter for me.

But wait! That’s not exactly true. This year was a particularly wet cherry season which meant there were a lot of splits in the cherries. Split cherries are still perfectly edible, but many people throw them out because they think they’re bad. Splits are just cherries that absorbed too much water, too quickly and consequently didn’t have enough time to grow to accommodate it all. Split cherries are sweet and juicy but not the prettiest ones in the basket. When you work in an orchard though there comes a point when, as much as you want to, you can’t shove anymore splits in your mouth. When that happened this year, my family started drying the cherries. What a wonderful idea! As soon as I heard this I began planning all sorts of cookies and bars and ice creams that involved dried cherries. I’m being rationed with the dried cherries though. Mom gave me one bag and kept the rest to dole out later because she knows I’ll plow through them in no time if they’re within my grasp. As a thank you, I made some of David Lebovitz’s Chocolate Ice Cream and enhanced it with Kirsch Flamed Cherries. Mom’s favourite cake is black forest, so this was a perfect flavour combination for her, (which I actually served on her birthday alongside a black forest cake). I am also indebted to my aunts who halved and pitted cherries to put in the dehydrator and will be making chocolate cherry cookies or bars for them as a thank you. All in good time.

Kirsch Flamed Cherries

½ cup dried cherries

¼ cup Kirsch

¼ cup water

Put the dried cherries and water in a small saucepan over medium heat and cook until the cherries have soaked up most of the water. Remove the pan from heat, add the kirsch and light it on fire! When the flames die out, pour the cherries and any leftover liquid into a bowl in the fridge to cool completely. Add it to your chocolate ice cream during the last couple minutes of churning so that it’s fully incorporated.

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Cherries + Fruit + Kirsch + Ice Cream + Chocolate + David Lebovitz