cherries

It's the little things, am I right?  

We went grocery shopping on Sunday afternoon at our usual produce mart.  On the second display to the right, I spotted the most glorious thing:  cherries are back in season!  Last summer, I went admittedly a little crazy on cherries.  At one point, the farmer's market lady told me it was the end of season so I ran all over the market and bought a pound of four different varieties.  I pitted them all to freeze for the winter and ended up with brown fingers for a few days from all the cherry juice.  I'd never given them a second look until last summer and they are one of my favorite staples in the warmer months.  I throw them in homemade lime and lemonade.  This week we threw a bunch in with a fresh pineapple I cut up and have been working on them all week.  They make me happy.

Having the bags in the freezer also came in handy in February when I added them to some peaches and made a cherry/peach cobbler with my mom's famous recipe.  It was SO good.   

My personal favorite is sour cherries.  They look similar to the jarred maraschino cherries you might see in a Shirley Temple but they taste like Sour Patch Kids.  I also loved the Rainier cherries last year that are yellow and reddish in coloring.  We just ended up with a more standard variety this week (Bings, I believe) but they are delicious.  

This is one of the first signs of summer and it is more than welcome in my life!  We have had several days where it got into the 80s and even a record-setting temp of 90 a couple of weeks ago.  My bike tires are pumped and primed for the long weekend.  Happy summer and happy cherry season!