My Cherie Amour

Who doesn't like Cherries? Everyone in our family does and we have been champing at the bit, waiting for the moment when they ripen and are ready to pick because this signals the start of our Summer of fabulous, fresh, free fruit foraging in the city.

We walked back to our favourite local cherry tree this week. Last week the fruit still looked a bit red, but on this attempt, we marched over Cobden bridge and our timing was perfect. The tree was laden with fat, juicy, sweet, black cherries.

Some friends came along with us and I don’t know how much they gathered but it did not take us more than half an hour to fill our own containers with 5 Kgs of perfect fruit. We did pick more than that but consumed a fair bit en route.

We still had quite a lot left from last week, so the Head Chef pitted and boiled down a big load into compote. This turned out to be a perfect midsummer pudding with soft, smooth vanilla ice-cream. The remainder was frozen to use at a later date.

I also added quite a lot to a big jar of vodka and this now smells like a curiously tantalizing mix of Cherry and Almonds/Marzipan. I have a good feeling about the final result.  I also think that when we filter the fruit out – that too will be rather popular with the adults, over ice cream, naturally.

Looking at the trees, I think it will soon be a very good year for Cherry Plums too. Anyone for a Plum Picknik?

Sweet as Cherry Pie

You know Summer has truly arrived when you are picking cherries. This fact is still true, even if it is the wettest June on record.



Someone Has Beaten Us To It



We braved the showery weather and nipped out to see what we could get. First stop was the tree where I work in Hedge End but most of these had been eaten by birds ;-(

Yuk!

We did get a few here though and I enjoyed watching the kids test the cherries on the adjacent tree, which look lovely but taste quite foul  - I did warn them but maybe they didn’t believe me because they tried them anyway.

Then we spotted another tree full of fairly small ripe looking fruit. These were delicate, almost translucent cherries and they tasted good to eat. This put a smile on our faces and we set about picking/eating as many as we could.



Yummy!



It wasn’t long before it started raining again but by this point we had already bagged ourselves a couple of Kilos. So, it was back to base with our fruity booty; we checked out a few other potential trees on our way home.

Expect further cherry related exploits and recipes in the near future as the various trees ripen and we dual, hand to wing if necessary with our avian adversary. Till then, it’s cherries all round during the annual disappointment of Wimbledon.