The Dinner Files

I’ve been a bit mad for cherries this summer. Mad enough to keep buying them even as the rate at which we manage to eat them slows down. Even as everyone else thinks to themselves, “you know what? I don’t think I need to eat a pound of cherries today.”

Luckily, one so mad is also obsessed enough to spend some serious time standing at the kitchen counter pitting them and laying them on trays so as to freeze them.

My pal Cheryl is right, they are delicious just like that – frozen. Once my snacking on frozen cherries calmed down, I threw some in a blender with yogurt, mint, and a bit of orange juice. Perfect summer breakfast.

You could use fresh cherries, obviously, but using frozen cherries thrown right in the blender creates an icy-ness in the smoothie that is divine – and unlike actual ice, frozen cherries don’t water down.

My plan was to use the sour cherries – something I never ever see in California – I bought at Clancy’s in Minneapolis and use the rest of the insane amount of blueberries my parents had brought up to the cabin and make scads of turnovers. These turnovers would be gorgeous and delicious and I would distribute them amongst our kind neighbors here at the lake – some of whom coughed up some Benadryl and Benadryl cream when my son got stung by a bee and others of whom are just jolly welcoming folks to whom I find myself driven to give turnovers.

So I made two batches of pie crust, tossed fruit with sugar and flour, and started rolling out circles. It ended up being 14 circles – six sour cherry turnovers and eight blueberry turnovers. Here’s the thing. Whether browning meat or rolling out pie dough, I like to take it to the limit. The limit is where really good stew becomes mind-blowing, where a nice pie becomes sublime. The thing with the limit, though, is it is the actual limit. Go beyond it and… things fall apart quickly. Good meat is burned. Perfectly ripe fruit boils into a mess of crust-less nonsense.

I went too far. I reached for the sun and my wax wings melted. That turnover dough wasn’t strudel-thin, but it was too thin for turnovers. Once in the hot oven the fruit just burst right out of those weak little casings and bubbled into a sticky, almost-burnt raft on the pan. The turnovers were still edible, but much of the juicy essence of the fruit ended up soaking in the sink.

They tasted fine, but only a few looked remotely gift-able. (The skillful use of a knife to cut off the burnt fruit dripping out of the sides saved the ones below for their photo shoot.) The Benadryl-giving neighbors (hey Rollins!) ended up with a turnover apiece. The other neighbors (hey Carlsens!) will get something nice soon. I have plans. Big plans.

Sour cherry turnovers

The sour cherries were awesome in these. Use any fruit you like, though, just cut the sugar back by about a third for fruit that isn’t mouth-puckeringly sour. This recipe makes six not-too-thin turnovers; increase at will if you have the gumption to roll out the dough.

1 recipe pie dough (for a one-crust pie)

1 pint sour cherries

1/3 cup sugar

a scant 2 tablespoons flour

Make the pie dough, divide it into 6 pieces and pat each piece into a 1/2-inch-thick disc. Wrap in plastic and chill at least an hour and up to 2 days.

Preheat oven to 350. Pit cherries. Have a large baking sheet ready. In a large bowl toss the cherries, sugar, and flour until some juice from the cherries and the sugar and flour form a sort of wet sandy mixture around the cherries.

Roll out each disc of dough into a 5- to 6-inch circle. Put 1/6 of the cherries on half of each circle, fold the dough over the fruit to make a half-moon shape, and crimp the edges. Put turnovers on the baking sheet, cut a vent or two or three in the top of each turnover, and bake until fruit filling is bubbling and the crust is the color of a wooden cutting board, about 50 minutes. Let cool.

Eat with coffee. I find they really taste best at breakfast. Turnovers are, after all, the original Pop-Tart.

I was not one of those kids who begged for more maraschino cherries in my shirley temple. I didn’t even eat the cherry in my shirley temple. That florescent, almost transparent red freaked me out but good. And so it was.

Then I made some spiced brandied cherries. And I ate one. I cannot imagine the person who would eat one of those and not think of making a manhattan with them. Well, I actually can imagine such a person. I even know several of them, but you get my point. To eat one of these delights is, for me, to think of a manhattan.

So I softened my position on cherries in drinks, if but lightly.

Then this past week I have twice – twice mind you – put cherries where I had never put cherries before. It was like I hardly knew myself.

First I put them in what would have been a gin and tonic but which, by muddling a few cherries before shaking the gin and a squirt of lime juice with them before straining that over ice and adding some tonic to the whole thing, became something else entirely. Neither particularly sweet nor fruity, since the bitter tonic canceled that out; nor bitter and a bit tart like a gin and tonic because, well, there were muddled cherries sweetening the proceedings up a bit. It really was a whole new drink and my dad and I enjoyed them thoroughly while my mom, who likes not cherries nor gin nor tonic, made a face at us.

Then – and given my family’s slavish devotion to my dad’s master margarita recipe and generations-long disdain of flavored or fruity margaritas I can hardly believe I did this – I made a cherry margarita. Again, I muddled some cherries, added one shot of tequila and half as much lime juice, shook it all together, and strained it over ice. I left out the triple sec I would normally use because I didn’t want it getting too sweet. It didn’t. It got cherry.

If I’d thought ahead I would have made a coconut drink and some kind of blueberry cocktail and had a real theme for the holiday weekend for you. Enjoy the fireworks – I’ll be watching them from a boat in northern Minnesota with, if experience tells me anything, my hands held tightly over my son’s ears as his little hands hold my hands firmly in place.

For quite some time I did not understand the clafouti. Cherries (or other fruit) baked in a batter that results in a cross between a baked pancake and a tart and a custard? What’s with that? Something clicked when I finally made one myself – the combination of ease and deliciousness snapped together in my head and the clafouti became my go-to dessert during cherry season.

Cherry clafouti

Use any fruit you like, but cherries are traditional.

1 pound cherries

3 eggs

1 cup milk

1/2 cup flour

1/3 cup sugar

1/8 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon vanilla

Powdered sugar for garnish (optional)

Preheat oven to 350 and butter a baking dish in the 9 x 13 family – although a bit smaller than that is great. While the oven heats up, settle in and pit the cherries. I like to pit them over the baking dish so all their juices end up in the dessert.

Whisk or whirl in a blender the eggs and milk. Add flour, sugar, salt, and vanilla and whisk or blend until smooth. Pour the batter over the cherries.

Bake until batter is set throughout and the edges and top are browning, about an hour.

Let sit a few minutes. Cut into pieces and sprinkle with powdered sugar, if you like. The powdered sugar really dresses up this humble dish quite a bit.

This week we had “Career Day” at my son’s school. I spoke to his kindergarten class and a third-grade class. I followed a parent who, among other things, creates exhibits at the Exploratorium and another parent who gave the kids computer keys that they joyfully pulled out of their pockets to show me. “Damn,” I thought, “I didn’t bring any toys.”

I did, however, bring cherries. I happily discovered, in a very unscientific survey, that 45 out of 45 kids love cherries. I talked to the kids about being a food writer, trying new foods, and describing food. I told the older kids how to make a berry fool, which they thought sounded really cool and then they asked for more recipes, which I took as a great sign for the future of home cooking. They got to eat some cherries and we tried to describe them together. Red, shiny, round, sweet, tart, were all yelled out multiple times. As were the following observations:

“It’s like an olive because it has a, a, a thing inside – what’s this called?” as a pit was held up for my inspection

“It’s a little like a lemon? Because of how it makes my mouth feel? But it’s also sweet like candy.”

“I could eat 1,000 cherries!”

Could hardly have said it better myself. We can all rest easy. The future of food writing is secure.

Ernest loved sharing the cherries with his classmates, but you know what he talked about when he got home? “Mama, Mama, guess what?” he said, “Tess’s dad showed us a computer. He makes computers and he showed us the inside of a computer!”

He had reason to be excited. He’s not really allowed to touch our computers. We don’t know anything about them and if they broke we’d have to pay someone a lot of money to fix them. We don’t even really know what might break them, so it’s best to play it safe and have them be off-limits. I mean, I wouldn’t want him doing anything to upset the tiny elves that make the computers go.

Which, I realize, is exactly how many people feel about their kitchens. And I want them to cook with their kids anyway, and try cooking from scratch and revel in the flavors they discover. So, in solidarity with every parent who lets their kid grate the cheese even though half of it ends up on the floor, I am going to be less scared of this google-machine on which I spend many many hours every single day (just like the people who are scared to cook – or scared to let their kids in the kitchen – still eat and feed their children several times a day). I will let Ernest use it. I will make it seem fun and exciting, even as I bite my nails with every click he makes. I will wish the tiny elves well.