Bumper Crop
Now that I’ve made my trek to get sour cherries at Levering Orchard, you should go, too. You still have enough time to get there to pick some for a Fourth of July pie.
Two years ago the sour cherry crop was pretty thin by the time we got there. Last year, because of the Easter freeze, there was nothing. So I was understandably anxious about what we’d find this year. Would I even get enough cherries for one pie?
Ah, yeah. We’ll be having one this weekend, with ice cream made from the crushed pits (you steep them in the custard; it’s supposed to taste like almonds). The trees have outdone themselves this year. Their branches are heavy with fruit. I mean, so heavy, that the birds aren’t even bothering, probably because they’ve already gorged themselves. Between my mom, my husband, my sister and a neighbor, I think we picked more than 50 pounds. My mom especially got cherry fever. We had to practically pry her out of a tree for our picnic lunch of fried chicken, refrigerator pickles and sliced tomatoes. It’s saying a lot when you have to force someone to take a break for homemade fried chicken.
Pick-your-own-cherries are $2.50 a pound. Levering - a green and tangled mountainside orchard just north of the North Carolina-Virginia line - has been in the same family for a century. They have black cherries, red cherries, yellow cherries, and on and on. You don’t even have to pit them before you freeze them (though I have made my way through some using a chopstick). They also sell them already picked, but it is really fun to get your own. You don’t have to do much work this year.
And hey, there are any recipes that put sour cherries to good use, please send them my way. I favor ones that really showcase the fruit, such as pies, tarts and ice cream. My brain is whirling about the possibilities of a cold sour cherry soup…
