Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Fresh & Pitted

I am laying in jars of red fruits since we are in peak cherry season: cherries, berries & rhubarb. Is there anything better, any time of year? This weekend we'll have them fresh:

I bake them slightly, add a little lemon juice, and jar the fruits and syrup til the fall and winter, when they come up in cake fillings and over ice cream. I use a cherry pitter from our local French grocery store, stamped "Italy." It costs $2 in France and could also be used for olives, I am sure:
I went to Sur La Table today, to see what they had for cherry pitters, and found this book at the front door: glad to see they are promoting local, though I don't know how much this has caught on with the Sur La Table crowd;
They had two cherry pitters; one that resembled an egg crate; slot in 6 cherries and press the top, and it pits for you. The other was a take on the traditional, though it looks pretty souped up, with this plastic hood and all; it costs $13:
I don't know about all this "stuff" they have at these stores though. Look what they have at the register, a point-of-sale enticement:


Honestly, who really needs a smiley-face spatula? I like the old stuff, including a lot of my Grandmother's things like her sifter; I embrace things like silicone no-melt spatulas, but I'll skip the smiley face ones. My sister swears by all this Sur La Table stuff, like a contraption to core and peel an apple. Fine for her, but it's so not me. We're gearing up for the weekend now...

3 comments:

  1. Hi. I found your blog and store recently and am obsessing about your baskets! They are so charming and I'm currently trying to choose which one I want, but it's so hard because I want a lot of them. :)

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  2. Nothing better. Ok, it's better if its homemade vanilla ice cream.

    My frantic week is almost over.

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  3. haha...I was actually considering one of the smiley face ones to use when my petite granddaughter is here. (But I didn't get it.)Happy 4th of July! xo Lidy

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