Bowl of Cherries and Two Glasses
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Life is just a bowl of cherries...

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“The cherry is one of the earliest fruits
to repay its yearly gratitude to the farmer.”
~ Pliny, “Natural History”

Life is just a bowl of cherries...

July


Cook and the Gardener:
A Year of Recipes and
Writings from the French
Countryside
© 1999 by Amanda Hesser, published by W. W. Norton & Co.

“…Of all the ripe fruit teeming in the garden, cherries are the greatest chore to harvest. Monsieur Milbert likes cherries, and he likes to see all the cherries
picked from his handful of trees. The trees were so heavily laden with fruit
that from a distance, they seemed to have red branches beneath their wispy
green leaves.
It became my duty to get up on a ladder and pick them. Every day until the last cherry was harvested, I had to lug the library ladder out to the garden. Once I
got it up to the garden and propped it under a tree, there was no turning back.
I was going tog et every ripe cherry if it killed me.
My first day I began picking early in the morning to beat the noon hear.
Monsieur Milbert was out admiring his garden. He did so often, as if it were
his Narcissian reflecting pool…
He could hear me rustling up against the branches of the cherry tree with the
ladder poking between the tangle of branches. Without doing too much damage,
I managed to place myself in a prime picking spot. I reached dangerously for a
far-out limb, trying to get a fat bunch. I was gasping with effort, wrestling with
the branches and absorbed in my business of one for the bowl, one for myself.
That’s when I heard a sharp, ‘Hein…Non, non.’ I looked down to find Monsieur Milbert shaking his head, puffing hard on his cigarette, which might as well
have been in my face. He snickered, then walked away briskly. He came back a
few minutes later and thrust a stick up at me on the ladder. ‘Here, try this,’ he
said, and stomped off once more.
He had gone and cut a branch from one of the linden trees – a straight, smooth
one, light enough for me to wield. He had trimmed it so that the end formed a
hook, where it met with an offshooting branch, perfect for pulling the branches closer to me rather than risking my life for a few cherries. I gathered more
cherries that day than I could carry home…”

Summer Basics

Cherries Eau-de-Vie

“Cherries hold up well preserved in alcohol. Because the skin protects the pulp,
they do not turn limp and soggy. The only drawback is that they lose their color.
It is important to us a good-quality alcohol – eau-de-vie, vodka or brandy –
because the cherries will absorb it. Bad booze makes for bad-tasting cherries.
The type of cherry is also an important consideration. Ripe Bing cherries and
the small French ‘grillotes’, which are slightly acidic and very juicy, both work
well. The following…versions show how I preserved the glut of cherries I faced
one season.
Most recipes for cherries eau-de-vie call for sugar. I do not use it because I like
to eat them with either sweet things like vanilla ice cream of alone with a piece
of good dark chocolate. I added sugar to the cherries eau de vie with lemon peel
as an experiment, and the result was pleasant but more timid.”

Makes 1 1-quart jar

Enough cherries to fill the jar (3-4 cups), washed, dried,
and stems removed
Eau-de-vie, vodka or brandy (80 proof) to cover
(3 - 3 1/2 cups)

Sterilize a 1-quart Mason jar with boiling water and dry with a clean towel. Loosely pack the cherries in the jar, leaving a 1/2-inch space at the top.
Cover with eau-de-vie and seal. Store in a cool, dark place. Let macerate
for at least 2 months before using.

Cherries Eau-de-Vie with Lemon Peel

You’ll need 1/4 cup of sugar and 3 wide strips of lemon peel. Sterilize the
jar with boiling water and dry with a clean towel. In a small pan bring 1/4
cup of the eau-de-vie and the sugar to a boil, to dissolved the sugar.
Remove from the heat and let cool completely.
Loosely pack the cherries and the lemon peel in the jar, leaving a 1/2-inch space at the top. Pour the cooled sugar syrup over the cherries, then cover with the remaining eau-de-vie. Seal the jar. Store in a cool, dark place. Let macerate for at least 2 months before using.

Flambéed Cherries with Crème Fraîche

Serves 4 to 6

4 cups cherries
1 cup Crème Fraîche
2 tablespoons sugar
1/3 cup Armagnac or brandy

1. Pit the cherries. Use a cherry pitter if you have one. I find them too
tedious and prefer just to use my thumbnail to split the cherry and
squeeze out the pit. This is especially quick if the cherries are ripe, in
which case they will also be juicy. Do it over a bowl so you don’t
lose too much juice.
2. Place a dollop of crème fraîche in each of four serving bowls and place
the bowls in the refrigerator to keep chilled. It’s important to do this ahead
of time, because once the cherries are done, prompt serving is necessary
or the cooked cherries quickly lose their charm.
3. In a medium sauté pan, heat the cherries and their juices over high heat. Sprinkle with the sugar and shake the pan to keep the cherries moving.
When you begin to smell the juices caramelizing (when the sweet smell deepens to a thicker, smokier, sweet smell), remove the pan from the
heat, add the Armagnac, and light with a long match if you have an
electric stove.  If you have a gas burner, tilt the pan toward the flame,
holding it away from you until the alcohol catches. Be careful! Shake
the pan until the flames die, about 1 minute. Spoon evenly over the
dollops of crème fraîche and serve immediately.

[Serving the cherries over vanilla ice cream rather than crème fraîche would
turn this into one of my all-time favorite desserts: Cherries Jubilee! MG]

Crème Fraîche

“It’s unfortunate that most of us don’t have the luxury of crème fraîche in the United States. This is a permissible substitute, though it lacks some of the tang
of real crème fraîche. Keep it in the refrigerator, alongside staples like orange
juice - they both have a refrigerator life of about two weeks.”

Makes about 2 cups

2 cups heavy cream
2 tablespoons buttermilk

In a plastic container (with a cover), stir together the cream and buttermilk, and let the container sit out at room temperature on the counter, covered, for 24 hours. Stir once more and refrigerate. The mixture will take on a slightly sour flavor, thought not as strong as sour cream, and will remain rich and creamy, thickening as it ages. It you let it go too long, you will eventually
end up with cheese. When this happens, you can mix it with herbs, salt,
and pepper, spread it in toast, and broil it.

Click for another take on Crème Fraîche.

Life is just a bowl of cherries continues...

Featured Archive Recipes:
Bing Cherries Preserved in Port
Black Forest Cherry Cake
(Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte)
Charlie Trotter's Bing Cherry Sorbet
Charlie Trotter's Chocolate-Bing Cherry
Cake with Bing Cherry Sauce
Cherry Cake Chateau Lake Louise
Cherry Cheesecake with
Chocolate Almond Crust
Cherry and Chocolate Brownie Torte
Cherry and Ganache Tart
in a Spiced Nut Crust
Cherry and Peach Cobbler
Cherry Pie, Michele's
Cherry Buttermilk Pie, Nalle's
Chocolate Cherry Ice Cream
Daniel Boulud's Arroz con Leche with
Sangria Figs and Cherries
Daniel Boulud's Milk Chocolate and
Cherry Tart
Emeril's Lattice Top Cherry Cobbler
François Payard's Spiced Cherry Soup
Sweet Cherry Clafouti from New York's Vong
Whole Wheat Yogurt Pancakes with Sweet
Cherries in Pomegranate Syrup

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