Cherry season

The arrival of the first batch of fresh cherries created a bit of a logjam at the entrance of the new Alye Parusa one day earlier this month. Several crates of chereshnya from Turkey and Greece had been dropped just past the metal detectors, and folks were picking through them with great care and enthusiasm. Granted, there is a logjam there most of the time -- the store assumes that because they have so much space that everyone can just go ahead and take a gigantic cart, regardless of what they are actually going to buy. No small carts, certainly no baskets, just the shopping cart equivalent of Hummers.

Since I’m still a cautious shopper here, I watched as one cagey old babushka dug around among the boxes and took from the one she did when she was done. They were very good. A few weeks later, we were treated when the first vishnya from Russia arrived. These are completely different creatures, though they look just like familiar black cherries. They are more tart, and taste rather like berries. This is a photo, by the way, of Olga’s hand snatching away yet another cherry as we enjoyed a pre-dinner snack. You have to be very quick if you want any when Olga is around.

In America we are quite alienated from our food supplies because we have air-shipped fruits from all corners of the earth arriving freshly waxed at Stop n’ Shop everyday. You start to loose track with the seasons when this happens. But you really see it here. I remember during our last visit here in summer 2005 when the watermelons all arrived, as if at once. For a few days, every road crossing had a giant bin of arbus for sale.