Adventure 5: Cherry Picking

Have you ever been to or thought about going to a cherry farm miles and miles away from San Francisco just to purchase the finest quality cherries? A round trip will likely cost more than $40 dollars of gas and many hours of your time traveling. Certainly it is a great experience to visit a cherry farm at least once in your life, but why not purchase cherries from local farmers ’ markets instead. During the cherry season in mid-May through mid-August, farmers and representatives drive all the way from their farms to San Francisco to sell cherries. These cherries normally come in wine, red, yellow-ish and white colors.

The best time I would suggest to purchase sweet cherries would be near the end of May and in June. Sweet cherries are usually wine colored and some of the yellow cherries are also sweet. But if you love sour cherries just like me, make sure to purchase them in mid-May before they ripped. Most sour cherries come in bright red color.

Cherries are usually sold by pound at the farmers’ market, not to mention the super market also sells them by pound as well. Price varies depending on the vendor. The last time I bought cherries from the farmers’ market in San Francisco cost me $2.99 per pound. I bought three pounds of bright red cherries and ate a few samples to satisfy my cravings. Having a farmers’ market nearby my house selling farm picked cherries has been very convenient for me.

Cherry Picking Tips

Depending on your desired taste, whether sweet or sour, will determine what ‘kind’ of cherries you will be picking. For sweet toothed, as I mentioned earlier, the wine colored and yellow-ish red cherries are the best choice and for sour toothed, the best choice is the bright red. There is no difference in picking either sweet or sour cherries. All the tips I will be providing applies to all cherries.

When picking cherries, you want to make sure the exterior skin is clear and bruise-free, just like picking strawberries.

You don’t want to purchase a cherry with a wormhole or a bruised spot, I wouldn’t.

The next thing you want to do is choose cherries that are not extremely soft like the inside red part of the watermelon or extremely hard like an apple, but in between.

The last step you have to do now is choose the cherry you would like to eat: bright red, wine colored, yellow-ish red or white.

Picking cherries sound easy right? I hope my tips will be an additional help to you when picking cherries in the future.

 

Cherry on Top

Besides eating just the cherry itself, some people find it better using cherries in their recipe. Popular cherry usages include cherry pies, preserved cherry on top of ice cream or drinks, dried cherries to eat as snacks and plenty more. You may find restaurants that use cherries in their food as edible decorations. Try including cherries in your dish and share what you made in the comment below.