Day 66, cherries (what else is there?)

The mark of a good summer is when your weeks come to revolve around the cherry harvest. By nature I am not one to even approach gluttony in my daily habits; I enjoy indulging now and again in small ways (i.e., my predilection for pudding) but no food holds any power over me. Except cherries.

But I think there is more to cherries than the taste and the nutrition. Yesterday, while polishing off a 2 lb. bag of Bing cherries after dinner, as I am wont to do during July's dog days, I thought about how soothing the rhythm of cherry-eating is: Select a cherry, the firmer the better, de-stem it, putting the stems on my tea saucer or, if the environment suits, throwing them into nature, pop in mouth, chew the flesh, omit the pit (again, to tea saucer, off the balcony, out the kitchen/car/office window). Select, de-stem, pop, chew, omit, over and over again. Cherries are indeed some kind of poetry.

Do you like red cherries or white (Rainier) cherries? Either suits me, though I'm partial to the classic variety. At the market, I like to select each cherry by hand, weeding out the ones with imperfections. It can take me 20 minutes to assemble a bag, only to consume it in half that time. Such is life.