The old cherry tree at our farm. Can you see one of our horses peeking through the branches?
My son, Russ, brought me a lovely gift this week—a bowl of cherries! He had been to the farm and found the old cherry tree ripe with fruit and brought me enough for a pie. Some years the birds beat us to the berries, but every now and then we outwit them.
A bowl of cherries means a cherry pie is in the works.
The Depression Era ditty, “Life Is Just a Bowl of Cherries,” was popularized by such singers as: Ethel Merman, Rudy Vallee, Doris Day, Jaye P. Morgan, and Judy Garland (recording here). Below are the lyrics:
People are queer, they’re always crowing, scrambling and rushing about;
Why don’t they stop someday, address themselves this way?
Why are we here? Where are we going? It’s time that we found out.
We’re not here to stay; we’re on a short holiday.
Life is just a bowl of cherries.
Don’t take it serious; life’s so mysterious.
You work, you save, you worry so,
But you can’t take your dough when you go, go, go.
So keep repeating it’s the berries,
The strongest oak must fall,
The sweet things in life, to you were just loaned
So how can you lose what you’ve never owned?
Life is just a bowl of cherries,
So live and laugh at it all.
Poking the cherry with the end of a straw is the best way to extract the pit.
Pitted cherries. A lot of work for a few cherries. But well worth the effort. If you don’t have access to fresh, sour cherries, they’re available in the freezer section at the grocery store.
Cherry Pie
Ingredients:
- 4-5 cups sour cherries, pitted
- 1 cup sugar
- 1/3 cup flour
- 1/4 tsp. almond extract
- Unbaked, double pie crust
Directions:
Prepare pie crust of your liking or use a store-bought double crust.
In a saucepan, mix together pitted, fresh cherries, sugar, flour and almond extract. Bring to a boil. Boil for 1 minute. Coll to room temperature.
Line an 8″or 9″ pie pan with half the pie dough. Brush the bottom crust with egg white. Spoon cooled cherry filling into crust. Cover with top crust. Trim excess dough, leaving a 1″ overhang. Turn crust under and crimp edges. Cut a few slits in top to allow the steam to escape.
Bake pie in center of 400 degree oven for 35 minutes or until crust is golden brown. Placing a cookie sheet under the pie while cooking will help with any clean up from spillage.
In Memoriam
Jean Carnahan and Ethel Burton in 1991.
