With a cherry on top
Picture a Chuck-E-Cheese-ball-pit-sized vat of pie cherries: that’s what our kitchen feels like right now.
The Tailor loves fresh sour pie cherries with a fiery passion, but they don’t grow well in western Washington (not enough sun). And they’re both hard to transport commercially (thin skins) and not super popular with folks under the age of 80 (too much work). So as you can imagine, even though home canning is a big part of everyday life around our house, he hadn’t been able to add cherries to the routine.
Until now.
He managed to find a farmer on the other side of the mountains who specialized in pie cherries. To make it worthwhile for both the farmer to harvest them fresh, and the Tailor to drive three hours one way, he ordered a metric boatload.
So now our kitchen is filled with pitted cherries.
And mashed cherries.
And pie’d cherries.
I gotta say—I finally see what all the fuss is about! That is one tasty labor of love.