Tai had a surprise day off from work today, so the two of us took our chances with the weather and went cherry picking at Fishkill Farms in Hopewell Junction, NY.  Fishkill Farms is a vegetable and fruit farm, and one of the few places in the area where you can find stone fruits grown using organic methods (although the farm is not certified organic).  The farm itself is quite beautiful, with rolling hills packed full of diverse crops and fruit trees, a big red barn that houses their seasonal farmer’s market, and a cafe’ open on the weekends.  It’s also convenient, being only 1.5 miles (but a world away) off of I-84.  I highly recommend checking it out.

The cherries are still in full force; some trees definitely seemed a bit past prime, with many, many split cherries rotting on the branch, but others trees were like Cherry Nirvana; whole handfuls simply fell into our buckets in no time.  There are sweet black cherries and sour cherries (the woman at the checkout did not know what varietals there were, and said that the trees were planted so long ago that no one remembers anymore!).  We lucked out with a rare 3-hour window of blue sky and a strange glowing orb in the sky… which of course, made us want to stay outside and continue soaking up both the cherries and the Vitamin D… which of course led to a metric assload of cherries.  Today’s definition of metric assload?  40 pounds.  Yes, you read that correctly: 4-0 pounds.  And because there was all sorts of important football to watch this week, I did not pick up the CSA on Wednesday, but picked it up… <wait for it>…. today.  Yes, once again, I have a metric assload of fruit and a metric assload of greens at the same time.  (Will she never learn??)

Stay tuned for many, many (many!) cherry recipes.  In the meantime, a little link-love for some of the recipes I’m contemplating:

• Green Salad with Roasted Cherries, Hazlenuts and Saint-Marcellin
• Quick Candied Cherries
• Pistachio Cherry Icebox Cookies
• Sweet Cherry Pie
• No Recipe Cherry Jam

On our way home, sticky, dirty, tired and extremely happy about  it all, Tai thanked me for taking him cherry picking; it was his first time.  As it happens, it was my first time cherry picking as well (except, of course, on the soccer pitch), so naturally, I just had to say: “Ha! We popped our cherries!”  Tai has banned me from punning for the rest of the day.  Spoilsport.