I just started cutting up my cherry tree. His name is Steve. Of all the things I was most excited about when I bought my house fifteen years ago, the prospect of having a fruit tree in the backyard so that I could have company over and present a bowl of cherries that I made was at the top of my list.
As it turned out, Steve produced tart cherries. Good for baking and preserving, but not so much setting in a bowl on the coffee table for guests. And while I myself disagree with this assessment (I actually love sour cherries right off the Steve), I accepted the fact that Steve was, like me, a bit antisocial. His talents were better appreciated with a little behind-the-scenes finessing.
Over the years Steve and I have made crowd-pleasing slab pies, decadent sorbets, and even infused some Basil Hayden's with tart cherries and orange peel to the tune of a campfire manhattan for the ages. Now that I'm thinking of it, about the only thing I haven't used his fruits for over the years was drying. That would have been a perfect way to introduce him to company - some dried cherries on a coffee-table cheese board next to a funky blue and some salted almonds? Missed opportunities, for sure.
The first few summers, while he ramped up production, I had to fight the birds. Those little pricks were relentless in their pursuit of Steve's goods. I tried netting, foil strips, and even a slingshot, until he finally got big enough in about the fourth year that there were plenty of cherries for the birds to take the top third and I could still get around a quart per day for my own use. The birds and I had an understanding.
One of the things I used Steve's cherries for most often was to make jelly that I then submitted to the MN State Fair. Repeatedly. Over and over I spent hot summer afternoons pitting, mashing, straining, and processing dozens of pounds of cherries into jelly, and it was always delicious but it never judged well. I spent hours passing the juice through coffee filters until that shit shone like stained glass, leveling off the top and measuring a quarter inch of headspace without allowing any bubbles on the surface. And though I never got a ribbon for my efforts, they did make judging notes so I got some free advice on how to improve my product.
Meanwhile, Steve himself grew to absurd proportions. He's a North Star Cherry, a cold-hardy dwarf hybrid developed by the University of Minnesota to thrive in our frost-heavy climate. And thrive he did. He was supposed to top out at 8-10 feet, but in the last few summers he's grown up into our electrical lines, which are at least 16 feet off the ground. Either I have magical soil or Steve is a goddamn wizard of a tree. Every year just before Memorial Day or so he would explode into a thousand beautiful tiny white blossoms, and a couple weeks later, for almost a month straight, I had to spend an hour a day picking, pitting, and refrigerating a quart or more of small tart cherries just to keep up with production.
So two summers ago, I'd finally given up on a positive outcome for the cherries from the wise elders at the state fair, so while I went ahead and made jelly, I had all kinds of other things going on too. I froze some, made some cobblers, was planning some infusions. That year I had three other Fair submissions because I expected nothing more than free input on my process for Steve's jelly. As it turned out though, all three other submissions were busts, and the jelly garnered me a State Fair Blue Ribbon. The best cherry jelly in the state of Minnesota came from my backyard - it came from Steve! I considered setting a couple jars out on the coffee table when we had guests over, just for effect.
Then, we had an unusually hard winter. The following summer Steve blossomed out like he always had, but all his fruit was kind of smallish and shriveled. We didn't really have a decent harvest, but I chalked it up to the harsh January that we weren't used to after being spoiled by a series of easy winters in the early teens.
Last summer though, Steve checked out even further. He has three main branches coming off his trunk, one growing toward the garage, and the other two arching houseward. The house-facing two had no leaves or fruit last year, and the garage side branch leafed out and seemed to bloom just fine, but the fruit didn't come. They were tiny pea-sized pebbles that just didn't develop into cherries. And the trunks of the dead two branches had these scaly, lichen-y fungi on them. Sadly, it looks like Steve has bloomed his last.
It's weird that he stuck around long enough for the accolades to roll in, and literally as soon as he had won the recognition that he'd reached a zenith, that was that. Steve had done what he'd come here to do, and was done doing it. So I started cutting him up today. Mostly he'll provide twigs for kindling to start bonfires next summer once they're dry, but a decent amount of trunk cherrywood for smoking will also be harvested and dried. I'm already thinking of the pork tenderloin that I'll cook over his charred torso alongside my next summer's sapling. Is that macabre? I think maybe I'll try pears next. Those look good in a bowl on the coffee table, right?
As it turned out, Steve produced tart cherries. Good for baking and preserving, but not so much setting in a bowl on the coffee table for guests. And while I myself disagree with this assessment (I actually love sour cherries right off the Steve), I accepted the fact that Steve was, like me, a bit antisocial. His talents were better appreciated with a little behind-the-scenes finessing.
Over the years Steve and I have made crowd-pleasing slab pies, decadent sorbets, and even infused some Basil Hayden's with tart cherries and orange peel to the tune of a campfire manhattan for the ages. Now that I'm thinking of it, about the only thing I haven't used his fruits for over the years was drying. That would have been a perfect way to introduce him to company - some dried cherries on a coffee-table cheese board next to a funky blue and some salted almonds? Missed opportunities, for sure.
The first few summers, while he ramped up production, I had to fight the birds. Those little pricks were relentless in their pursuit of Steve's goods. I tried netting, foil strips, and even a slingshot, until he finally got big enough in about the fourth year that there were plenty of cherries for the birds to take the top third and I could still get around a quart per day for my own use. The birds and I had an understanding.
One of the things I used Steve's cherries for most often was to make jelly that I then submitted to the MN State Fair. Repeatedly. Over and over I spent hot summer afternoons pitting, mashing, straining, and processing dozens of pounds of cherries into jelly, and it was always delicious but it never judged well. I spent hours passing the juice through coffee filters until that shit shone like stained glass, leveling off the top and measuring a quarter inch of headspace without allowing any bubbles on the surface. And though I never got a ribbon for my efforts, they did make judging notes so I got some free advice on how to improve my product.
Meanwhile, Steve himself grew to absurd proportions. He's a North Star Cherry, a cold-hardy dwarf hybrid developed by the University of Minnesota to thrive in our frost-heavy climate. And thrive he did. He was supposed to top out at 8-10 feet, but in the last few summers he's grown up into our electrical lines, which are at least 16 feet off the ground. Either I have magical soil or Steve is a goddamn wizard of a tree. Every year just before Memorial Day or so he would explode into a thousand beautiful tiny white blossoms, and a couple weeks later, for almost a month straight, I had to spend an hour a day picking, pitting, and refrigerating a quart or more of small tart cherries just to keep up with production.
So two summers ago, I'd finally given up on a positive outcome for the cherries from the wise elders at the state fair, so while I went ahead and made jelly, I had all kinds of other things going on too. I froze some, made some cobblers, was planning some infusions. That year I had three other Fair submissions because I expected nothing more than free input on my process for Steve's jelly. As it turned out though, all three other submissions were busts, and the jelly garnered me a State Fair Blue Ribbon. The best cherry jelly in the state of Minnesota came from my backyard - it came from Steve! I considered setting a couple jars out on the coffee table when we had guests over, just for effect.
Then, we had an unusually hard winter. The following summer Steve blossomed out like he always had, but all his fruit was kind of smallish and shriveled. We didn't really have a decent harvest, but I chalked it up to the harsh January that we weren't used to after being spoiled by a series of easy winters in the early teens.
Last summer though, Steve checked out even further. He has three main branches coming off his trunk, one growing toward the garage, and the other two arching houseward. The house-facing two had no leaves or fruit last year, and the garage side branch leafed out and seemed to bloom just fine, but the fruit didn't come. They were tiny pea-sized pebbles that just didn't develop into cherries. And the trunks of the dead two branches had these scaly, lichen-y fungi on them. Sadly, it looks like Steve has bloomed his last.
It's weird that he stuck around long enough for the accolades to roll in, and literally as soon as he had won the recognition that he'd reached a zenith, that was that. Steve had done what he'd come here to do, and was done doing it. So I started cutting him up today. Mostly he'll provide twigs for kindling to start bonfires next summer once they're dry, but a decent amount of trunk cherrywood for smoking will also be harvested and dried. I'm already thinking of the pork tenderloin that I'll cook over his charred torso alongside my next summer's sapling. Is that macabre? I think maybe I'll try pears next. Those look good in a bowl on the coffee table, right?
