Welcome to Home Cooking Diary, a newsletter on my journey as a home cook—the successes and failures alike. A cooking log, photo diary, and recipe recommender. Today I’m still on a high from getting my hands on three quarts of sour cherries and here to tell you all about it.
Having already complained to you about the short fruit season this year in the Mid-Hudson Valley, I’ll try to keep my griping at bay. My primary source of frustration was sour cherries, which I began the season determined to procure despite the wildly brief window of time they are available. I researched farms, asked for advice from people who have lived here longer than me, I made reservations at farms to pick berries (yes you have to make reservations for such things now). And to no avail! I naively thought that moving Upstate would mean the easier procural of such things, but it’s no small task tracking them down. Just as I had given up, a friend of mine from my “Mom Group”—another group of people I’ve complained about this to—came across some Samascott Orchards cherries at the Village Grocery & Refillery in Kingston and brought me back three whole quarts. This felt somewhat ironic since this was my spot for the better part of a year—I lived a few blocks away when I was pregnant and without a car, so some days I only set foot outside to walk Shelby and to walk to-and-from the Village to buy overpriced groceries and very bougie pantry items.
Anyway—and here I’m about to reveal myself as a real City Slicker—what I find fascinating about seasonal direct-from-the-farm produce is that the season for things can vary by a week or two weeks or even a month depending upon location and micro-climate. So while blueberries came and went here in the Mid-Hudson region in what felt like ages ago, it’s still going in Columbia County and it’s just now beginning in the Catskills. So wild right? Now that I know this, I realize how obvious it sounds, but having no knowledge or experience of farming I have very little common sense about it.
It IS sour cherry season somewhere, and I highly suggest that you try to track some down if you can. I have a few ideas for how to use them. You can of course eat them by themselves, but as their name suggests they aren’t quite as tasty as a sweet cherry or Rainier cherry for snacking (imo). My main objective was to make a Cherry Pie, and predictably I made Alison Roman’s version with nutty crumble on top. It was delicious but overflowed a bit in the oven (I used the exact amount of cherries the recipe specified…I even weighed it…shrug). My pie ended up losing a lot of the sweet, sugary filling leaving behind mostly fruit and crumble topping. I wouldn’t call it a failure, but the whole point of a sour cherry pie is the contrast between the tart and the sweet. I thought the pie seemed on the full side but forged ahead because the recipe stated pretty unequivocally to use all of the fruit and liquid. A bummer! I’m still learning to trust my instincts.
Luckily I still had at least a pound of cherries left, so this morning I used half of them for baked oatmeal (shout out to Bri who suggested it). I used Melissa Clark’s recipe, swapping out berries for the sour cherries. So yummy (though Tycho didn’t touch it). I could have easily included all of the fruit I had left in the oatmeal, but the other thing I had my heart set on making with cherries this year was focaccia. For the dough I used another Melissa Clark recipe. This was only my second effort so I can’t compare it to much else. The first time I made focaccia I followed Marcella Hazan’s recipe, which appears in Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking, and let’s just say I needed a bit more hand-holding. That recipe doesn’t offer a ton of guidance and it was a disaster. I also suspect I was using expired yeast—another issue—the main issue, probably. The Melissa Clark recipe served me well, but you could adapt any recipe with these toppings. I decided to add sage at the last minute because I have an ungodly amount of sage to use, and I am so glad I did. The tartness of the cherries plus the savory sage, plus the flaky Maldon sea salt is just savory sweet, mouth-puckering perfection.
If I’m able to get more sour cherries (you never know!), I’d like to try using them for a marinade, for jam, and for another batch of oatmeal. And maybe another focaccia—I think my third effort will go even better.
xo AV
Sour Cherry & Sage Focaccia
Ingredients
Focaccia dough made from a recipe of your choice (I followed Melissa Clark’s recipe)
Extra virgin olive oil
1/2 lb sour cherries, pitted
10-15 sage leaves
Maldon sea salt
Method
Heat oven to 425F and line a sheet pan with parchment paper. Drizzle the parchment paper generously with olive oil.
Once the dough is made, shape it into a ball and rest it on the parchment paper for 20 minutes, then using your hands, spread it out into your desired shape. Let it rest another 5 minutes, with a damp tea towel draped over it.
Shape it a bit more if you like but make sure it isn’t pressed too thin or flat. Again, using your fingers, gently press into it and create little divets in the dough.
Arrange cherries and sage in whatever arrangement you like and sprinkle with sea salt and drizzle with more olive oil.
Bake in pre-heated oven for 25-ish minutes until golden brown.
While I have you, some recommendations
Something to (re)watch / I’ve been revisiting the 2011 British TV show, The Hour (Acorn TV), which I watched at the time, and loved and was so devastated when it was canceled. It’s from the same era as Mad Men and sort of feels like Mad Men but set in the tv journalism world and with a dash of political intrigue. I love the entire cast—Romola Garai and Ben Whishaw are as good as ever—but it also features early roles for Tom Burke (drool) and Vanessa Kirby and others.
Something to (re)read / As I wait for my copy of Heidi Julavits’s long-awaited latest, Directions to Myself: A Memoir of Four Years to arrive, I’m rereading The Folded Clock, a book of diary entries that blew my mind when it came out back in 2016, and is speaking to me in wholly different ways now that I’m nearly seven years older (seriously, what is time?).
Somewhere to shop / Like all of the best things, I originally heard about Baer Vintage from Stephanie Danler (who has the best taste). Madelaine Baer curates a selection of vintage that the California girl in me can’t resist. Perfect heather gray raglans, classic Gucci and Prada accessories, sailor pants, and the best souvenir tees (a recent acquisition is a perfect vintage navy Santa Barbara tee). My most recent purchase is a faded black cotton Mexican dress that I’ll be living in all summer.
I so enjoyed reading this! Even your‘failures’ are entirely! ( And I don’t see them as failures, just learning experiences)