Hey you, ya you…summer is officially on the calendar, although, as I sit here writing and stop to look outside you wouldn’t know it. In true PNW style, the sky is grey and overcast, a little gloomy, and definitely not warm. Everyone knows the summer weather doesn’t truly start here until after July 4th, but that cannot diminish my true summer love it is the season of the Queen of Stone fruit, the cherry!
I’m not one for superlatives, I don’t have a favorite of all time for everything, but I will say that cherries are my favorite stone fruit, maybe even, my favorite fruit of all. I just had this conversation with my daughter, she believes if you think hard enough everyone has a favorite of all time for everything, I disagree, but she may be right. I digress, back to the topic at had the beautiful, the complete package, the cherry.
The cherry has it all going for it, it’s lovely to look at, sweet, yet slightly tart, small and compact, can be eaten in one bite, fun to eat and spit out the pit, delicious fresh, frozen, or dried, great in desserts, salads, and pairs well with meat, a cherry glaze for your lamb maybe?
I have a history with the regal cherry. We had two, no three cherry trees in our yard. One tree only bore teeny tiny fruit that was almost all pit and no meat it just made a mess all over the yard. We had one tree that bore deep, luscious mahogany fruit, and looking at the varietals could be a Bing, a Sweetheart, or a Chelan, and then we had a tree that bore fruit that looked like Rainier, but my grandmother always called them Queen Annes. Upon further research, they are also called a Royal Anne, and have the same yellow to rosy skin as a Rainier, but are slightly more tart. I would climb up in those trees on long summer days and just sit, and eat cherries musing for hours.
If you think about some of the most loved flavors, cherry is tops. Cherry limeade, cherry Coke, and cherry juice are seeing a boom on TikTok for having natural melatonin, and part of a sleepytime drink, the list goes on. I enjoy the fake cherry flavor, but even more the real flavor is simply Queens Bees.
I love to have a bowl of cherries chilled from the refrigerator out to snack on in the summer afternoons or simply on the table with dinner, but it is also equally delectable for dessert, and one of my favorite desserts to make is a clafoutis. A baked custard studded with fruit.
Clafoutis is a French dessert baked in a buttered dish, and studded with unpitted cherries. The pits in the cherries kiss the dish with a subtle aroma of almonds. The pits contain the compound benzaldehyde which is the main component in almond extract giving the natural essence. Just make sure you warn your guests should you choose the original preparation to watch for the pits while enjoying their delicious dessert. Serve with a sprinkling of powdered sugar or with a scoop of vanilla ice cream…chef’s kiss!
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