Black Beauties

They’re here. Here to brighten up my otherwise sweaty, unpleasant summer. The season is not a long one, but I do my part to consume as many as I can. I don’t remember their being around when I was growing up. IN those days we ate sweet green grapes, cold from the refrigerator. Now black cherries fill the bill.

One time when my friend Susan and I were in London, every day on the way back to the B. and B. from the Metro, we passed a wonderful fruit store, where we would pick up plums, peaches and black cherries for a pre-dinner snack. Soon it was just the black cherries. If we had enough left after dinner, they were good for dessert, too. I once spent a week up op Traverse City doing a storytelling workshop at the EMU branch there. Traverse City, MI is only the black cherry capital of the world, I think. There was black cherry sauce on chicken, black cherry cake, black cherry ice cream and black cherries on sale by the road side. I l loved it.

The best buy around here is at one of those discount grocery stores over in Ravenna. For all I know they come from Lower Slobbovia, but they are superb, sweet and juicy and beautiful to behold. That’s the extra kick with this fruit. You con sit and admire it before you eat it.