Once upon a time, specifically in 1983, I received one of the best pieces of shopping advice I’d ever had, or ever will have, from Cynthia Heimel’s masterwork Sex Tips for Girls: Do not be seduced by a pretty turn of phrase. This is good advice for many situations, but it is particularly good for shopping. She points out that a $700.00 Armani blazer marked down to $29.99 is might sound sexy, but if the sleeve length of said blazer makes you look like a gorilla, it’s no bargain, especially when you can get a decent lunch for two for $29.99.
Just because I recognize this as good advice, though, doesn’t mean that I follow it. Left to my own devices, I would buy that gorilla blazer. I once came perilously close to buying a pair of emerald earrings I could not afford just because they were marked down from $3,000 to $1,000; fortunately, the voice of reason prevailed. If only that voice of reason would do more than make cameo appearances in my life. Had it accompanied me to the farmers’ market on Saturday, it might have told me that the sign written in large friendly letters “Possibly the last week for sour cherries!” was not a sign for me to buy as many quarts as possible. After all, I had already picked up my nectarines and basil for the second trial of the nectarine-basil pie. I had tomatoes. I had vegetables. I had what I needed. I did not need eight quarts of cherries.
Eight quarts of cherries were what I bought, though, and I have to admit that they were so beautiful I almost couldn’t take my eyes off them all the way back to Astoria. I hatched a plan to make one more cherry pie, maybe two, and turn the rest into cherry-almond jam, which I made in quantity last summer and used not only for toast, but also for cherry-vanilla apple pie. Had I been more organized, I would have remembered that cherry jam requires apple pectin to set, and I neglected to buy apples. Since I knew I was not about to run back down to the farmers’ market for apples, I decided to donate the cherries --and the money I’d spent on them—to the cause of science by testing the theory that sour cherries tossed with sugar keep well in the freezer. I feel like I have spent the entire weekend slicing cherries open, squeezing out the pit, collecting the juice and fruit into freezer bags, tossing sugar in after them, kneading everything gently, sealing them and storing them in the freezer. It is pleasant and absorbing work for 90 minutes. After 90 minutes, it becomes unutterable tedium. After 4 hours, you just might find yourself screaming on the inside.
Fortunately, the surest cure for cherry-pitting insanity is to bake a cherry pie. If you still feel the lingering aftereffects of insanity, you can follow it up with the nectarine and basil pie. If at this point you are saying “But Jen! We can’t eat two entire pies!,” just remember that you probably know at least one person who is not on Atkins, and who hasn’t had a slice of homemade pie in years.
Of course there are pictures, as well as pictures of the beets and marjoram that made our Friday night spaghetti and beet sauce.
The cherry pie:
The nectarine and basil pie:
The beets:
The marjoram:
