Rainier cherries
It's Rainier cherry time! They're my favorite cherries -- possibly even my favorite fruit, and they have a very short season and are often hard to find, so I'm always so happy when I see them in my grocery store, and eat as many as I can before they're gone again for another year.
I love their delicious summery flavor, less sweet than Bing or other red cherries, lovely rose-and-cream color, large, round bodies with firm, juicy flesh.
I also love them because they remind me of the cherry tree we had in the lower yard when I was a kid. I lived in a rural area on two acres, and we had several fruit trees here and there -- none particularly tended, just allowed to fruit or not as they would. The apple trees were tall and hard to climb, and the plums were small and beloved by bees, but the cherry tree was perfectly child-sized, with conveniently-placed climbing branches.
It was a Royal Anne cherry tree, an old-fashioned type you rarely see any more, but the cherries were white cherries, like the Rainiers, and very similar in flavor. I used to spend many hours every summer climbing that tree, eating the cherries right off the branches. It was a small enough tree that I could reach most of the cherries by stretching and twisting and scooting out as far as I could along the branches. I never fell, even though I crept precariously out onto high branches to grab that elusive bright shiny cherry that always seemed just out of reach (and invariably had been munched by birds on the other side when I finally did get it), although my mom tells me she had to teach me how to climb down when I first zoomed up it at the age of three or four.
About halfway up the tree were two good-sized branches that were set one out and below the other, so that together they made a comfy seat to sit in. Sometimes I'd take a book up into the tree and sit and read for hours, taking breaks now and then to gather some more cherries while they were in fruit.
So whenever I see white cherries in the store, I remember childhood summers in my cherry tree at home.
I love their delicious summery flavor, less sweet than Bing or other red cherries, lovely rose-and-cream color, large, round bodies with firm, juicy flesh.
I also love them because they remind me of the cherry tree we had in the lower yard when I was a kid. I lived in a rural area on two acres, and we had several fruit trees here and there -- none particularly tended, just allowed to fruit or not as they would. The apple trees were tall and hard to climb, and the plums were small and beloved by bees, but the cherry tree was perfectly child-sized, with conveniently-placed climbing branches.
It was a Royal Anne cherry tree, an old-fashioned type you rarely see any more, but the cherries were white cherries, like the Rainiers, and very similar in flavor. I used to spend many hours every summer climbing that tree, eating the cherries right off the branches. It was a small enough tree that I could reach most of the cherries by stretching and twisting and scooting out as far as I could along the branches. I never fell, even though I crept precariously out onto high branches to grab that elusive bright shiny cherry that always seemed just out of reach (and invariably had been munched by birds on the other side when I finally did get it), although my mom tells me she had to teach me how to climb down when I first zoomed up it at the age of three or four.
About halfway up the tree were two good-sized branches that were set one out and below the other, so that together they made a comfy seat to sit in. Sometimes I'd take a book up into the tree and sit and read for hours, taking breaks now and then to gather some more cherries while they were in fruit.
So whenever I see white cherries in the store, I remember childhood summers in my cherry tree at home.