Bloggus Interruptus.

After walking around for several days flagellating myself and suffering from regular bouts of Phantom Camera Syndrome--as in '...must take picture, oh wait, arrrgh...'*--I've plunged my pale and trembling hand into my wallet and withdrawn the credit card.

Actually, my hands are less than pale, and the fingertips are stained a boozy red from picking a heaped bucket of dark cherries. The berries are now in the kitchen, and I'd take a picture, but, well, if you've read the previous post (and you have, haven't you?), you would know this is not currently within the realm of possibility. So I'm mulling over what to do with this huge pile of cherries, knowing there's simply loads more to pick tomorrow--and I don't have a cherry pitter. Dorie Greenspan loves hers, you know, and I just really believe I also need one, for a couple of weeks every year anyway. The lack of this tool is why I don't make cherry jam or cherry pie, and why I do make [a way lot of] cherry clafoutis.

The camera's been ordered, but will take some time to arrive. I won't be sitting on my hands waiting though: the last day of school is tomorrow, and nearly as soon as the final bell has rung, I'll be welcoming the first friends to our house for the official start to endless summer. My version of it, at least.

All this to say that I'm hanging up the sign "Closed for Business" until mid-July anyway, which is a couple of weeks from now. Time enough for eventual delivery delays, for fresh ideas of places to explore, recipes to try, and for doing a whole lot of nothing much with some of my favorite people.

In the meantime, do check out some of my favorite blogs. I'll be reading them as well in the lull just before bed calls, when the frog orchestra out back begins its nightly cycle of love songs for the sleepless and amphibian.

Y'all come back now, y'hear?

*Not to diminish the pain of those suffering from Phantom Limb Syndrome or any number of other, you know, actual problems.

Cherries the old-fashioned way.

I missed the annual Pitchfork and Cherry Festival in Sauve, which was this past weekend. No matter, because I still got my hands on some of the first local cherries of the season. It was all I could do not to grab the paper bag of cherries, lock myself away and devour the half-kilo myself. Everything being delayed this spring, growing-wise, the cherry trees in my garden do have fruit, but it still looks more like small olives than berries.

A bag of cherries doesn't go that far if every seat at the dinner table's taken, so I decided to stretch the pleasure by baking them into a dessert. Clafoutis, which I've written about before, is a French classic from the Limousin region (the name is Occitan in origin). It has been around since at least the nineteenth century. While it resembles a cake, in texture it's closer kin to baked custard. The pits are not removed from the cherries, and give a deeper almond taste to the dish, which I sometimes enhance with a tablespoon of ground almonds. This is on my short list of the Easiest Desserts Around, and yet it also gets such rave reviews. Try it, and you'll see what I mean.
Clafoutis aux cerises (Traditional Cherry Clafoutis)

Serves four to six, depending on how many cherry lovers are present.

500 g ripe dark cherries (about four cups)
1/3 cup sugar
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour (or half flour, half ground almond blend)
3 large eggs
2/3 cup whole milk (or half milk, half cream blend)
3 teaspoons kirsch (or two teaspoons vanilla)
1/4 teaspoon salt

Preheat oven to 200C. In a blender, combine the sugar, flour, eggs, the milk, kirsch, and salt until the mixture is smooth. Arrange the cleaned cherries in a single layer in a buttered baking dish (they should fit somewhat snugly). Pour the mixture over and bake the clafouti for some 20 minutes, or until the top is puffed, golden and springy to the touch. Once removed from the oven, the dessert will deflate a bit; this is perfectly normal. Best enjoyed while still warm.