NewMexiKen has been munching on Rainier cherries today. A few at a time. Anything that good (and expensive) has to be savored.
Anyway, the cherries reminded me of a story two years ago from Jill, one of two official daughters of NewMexiKen.
[Three-year-old] Mack and I picked out some lovely ripe cherries at the market today. We’re going to chop them up put them in homemade ice cream.
At lunch I diced some of them and gave them to [8-month-old] Aidan.
He grabbed a couple and stuffed them in his mouth. Immediately, his eyes shot to me with an expression that perfectly conveyed two thoughts:
“My God, but I do love you, woman.”
and
“Exactly what else have you been keeping from me?”
Tree-ripened Rainier cherries are a buck fifty a pound at the farm in Mosier, Oregon. Cheaper if you pick your own, and they don’t count the ones you eat as you’re picking.
Bings are a buck a pound or seventy cents for picking.
I like cherries well enough, but man-oh-man the Hermiston melons (canteloupes for me) are to die for.
And what I really look forward to every summer are ten-cent ears of corn up here in the shadow of Mt. Hood.
I really enjoy living here in the desert but I do miss tree
ripened fruit or really tree ripened anything except maybe
citrus.