Cherries!!!

It's cherry season!! Short but oh so sweet cherry season!! Cherries are fantastic for you and they are a part of the whole "eat the rainbow" campaign. 

Cherries have been linked to help with cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, inflammation and Alzheimer's Disease. Folks suffering with gout are encouraged to eat cherries. Cherries are full of vitamin C, anthocyanin antioxidants and melotonin and are great for insomnia and jet lag. They also taste great and fun outside food when you can spit pits at people.

Did you know that cherries were brought over here to America by ship in the 1600's? A bit later after that some French colonists brought over some pits (they probably ate them on their way over) and planted them along the St. Lawrence River and Great Lakes. During the 1800's more and more people were growing cherry trees. In 1852, a Presbyterian minister, Peter Dougherty, started planting cherry trees on Old Mission Peninsula which is near Traverse City, Michigan (the cherry capital of the world!). The trees really took off! Earlier in 1847, Henderson Lewelling was planting his cherry trees and in Western Oregon and named a variety after one of his Chinese workers, Bing. 

Cherries do have a short growing period and it's for only a couple weeks that you can find them at decent prices in the local stores. I generally gorge myself since it will be over before it seems to have begun. Generally, cherries are one of those few fruits that consistently look good in my grocery store which always seems to have questionable produce. What you want to look for though is nice, plump cherries. No wrinkly skin. They should be firm to the touch and have fresh green stems. I can never seem to find ones with "fresh green stems" so I look for healthy, bendy stems. It's probably not too good to bend a stem and have it snap. 

Cherries can be used for a lot of great recipes from cherry pie to brandied cherries to cherries jubilee. I prefer to eat them on their own especially on the beach where I can spit the pits out preferably at my kids. One cherry side note, George Washington didn't really cut down a cherry tree that anyone really knows. Parson Mason Weems, the dude who wrote a biography on George Washington shortly after his death, kinda made that up. Not much is really known about George's childhood so Weems made a few stories up that attested to some really admirable qualities our great leader possessed. I'm kinda fond of the story myself.

Traverse City, Michigan is the "cherry capital of the world". Of course with a title like that you HAVE to have a cherry festival! You know they do!

Check out their website for their annual Cherry Festival that runs from July 5 through July 12 2014.