I bought some at the Oak Park market the week before last but only a few vendors had them. I expect to find a lot of cherries on Saturday this week.

Saw sour cherries at the French Market this week and also a number of vendors (at least four or five) had fresh sour cherries at the Andersonville Farmer's Market a couple days ago.

Bread 'n' Bowl Company
7239 W. Dempster Avenue
Niles, IL
312/388-8494, 312/217-8494
BreadnBowl@gmail.com
Closed Tuesdays

I bought a quart from Hardin Farms at the Andersonville market on Weds. They were perfect!

As mentioned upthread, several other vendors had them there as well. I'm definitely going to get some to freeze this season.

I will check at the Stover stall at the Evanston FM tomorrow - they sell big ol' tubs of fresh Michigan *pitted* sour cherries in season. Makes pie and jam prep so easy that you feel like you're cheating. Tip: parcel out enough to make a pie and a batch of jam now, and freeze the rest, right in the tight-sealing plastic tub - there is virtually no deterioration in quality, and busting out a sour cherry pie at Thanksgiving will make you look like a hero.

Big quarts of fresh sour cherries at Fresh Farms on Touhy. $4? $4.99? Sorry. One or the other but the cherries looked very nice.

In fact, Fresh Farms was just LOADED with every kind of cherry and berry you could want. My only gripe is that their prices sure have soared from when they opened. They are hitting Jewel-level or Dominicks-level prices on much of their produce! Guess the grand opening is over.

--Joy

5740 W Touhy Ave
(between Austin Ave & Central Ave)
Niles, IL 60714

(847) 779-7343

Hi- I think most of the Michigan growers will have fresh sour cherries this Saturday at the Evanston's farmers market. If you are ambitious you can go to my sister's fruit farm outside of Coloma Michigan. You get off at exit 39 on I-94. Everything is early this year, and she is all out of upick sweet cherries, but she will have upick sour cherries through 7/5. Her upick is open from 10:00am-5:00pm, but I would call first. She still has already picked sweet and sour cherries available at her fruit stand, which is located right off exit 39. Her sour cherry upick is about a mile South of the fruit stand. Here is a link to her website: http://fruitacresfarms.com She will have upick peaches starting July 18. There is at least one person that sells at the Evanston market that sells frozen pitted sour cherries every week in cans. Her name is Sally Stover, and she is located at the very last spot in the first row which is next to Maple. There might be some other growers that carry frozen pitted cherries, but most of the Michigan growers that sell at the Evanston farmer's market, only sell sour cherries when they are in season, and usually sell them by the quart, although I am sure they would give you a deal if you wanted to buy 10 pounds or more.

Another place you can probably get frozen cherries is Sara Lee Thrift shop. I know the one on Dempster in Skokie carry's stuff from Coloma Frozen Fruit, and I assume they carry their frozen cherries. BTW a lot of the stuff packaged by Coloma frozen fruit comes from California, although I am sure that all their sour cherries come from Michigan. Michigan is the largest grower of sour cherries in the country.

The person who does not hit the farmer's markets because she belongs to a CSA. None of the CSA's raise cherries, apricots or peaches, and very few of them raise blueberries and apples. Hope this helps, Nancy

Picked up a tub of these today from Seedling at the Wicker Park market. The same price for 4 quarts - pitted or unpitted! I plan to divide into smaller amounts and freeze what I don't use today in ziplocks.

The season for fresh sour cherries has been very accelerated this year. Mick Klug had his Hungarian Balaton cherries at the Lincoln Square afternoon/evening farmers' market this past Thursday. These cherries are of the Morello type and are later and a darker red than the more common Montmorency. With the hot weather since then, the end is imminent.

A farmer at the Mt. Prospect market today told me this weekend was the last of the season. I'm hoping to get some more frozen ones; a farmer who comes to the Arlington Heights market sells them. The wet weather certainly seems to have sped things up.

bibi rose wrote:The wet weather certainly seems to have sped things up.

The early spring has advanced the season from fruits and vegetables to trees, bushes, perennials and wild mushrooms.

Yesterday, I noticed my overabundant plantings of Chinese chives are sending up flower shoots. This never happens until late July usually.

Regards,

This weird Spring is advanced one-two weeks all over Eastern N. America. Here in Québec our grapes bloomed 7-10 days early, and strawberries (oh! oh! oh! Québec strawberries! the greatest; bought some at the farm on Saturday, certainly the best berries I've ever had...) have hit full-tilt a week early, too.

Lots of snow last Winter, rain in the Spring, fairly high temperatures, on average and bingo! you have as a consequence this advanced season. Enjoy!

Geo

Stover's, my long-time pitted sour cherry source at the Evanston F-market, was out by the time I showed up on Saturday. No worries, though - I asked at both Seedlings and Mick Klug Farms at the Lincoln Square market today, and both had them on hand, already packed and frozen. I bought the smaller unit available at Klug's, 2.5 lbs for $7 - Seedlings was the equivalent of a flat.

I'm glad I asked, BTW, as neither stand noted that they carry frozen pitted cherries. An off-menu special, I guess. . .

Have to say, I was more than slightly appalled, buying a $5 quart of pie cherries at the Evanston Farmer's Market (I did shop around - there were quarts for $7, not sure if the difference was for a specific reason or not) and then finding the same quart at Fresh Farms for $3.99. I can't imagine that the ones from Fresh Farms aren't local, considering the timing. Arrgh.

I also spent waaay too much money on black raspberries, but you can't seem to find those outside a farmer's market.

Thanks for the input everyone-- I scored a 4-quart pail of pitted cherries for $29 at the Evanston farmers market last weekend. I froze them in 1-pie aliquots, as it is just too hot to make pie this week. I'm glad I didn't miss cherry season this year!

Jen

I am going to be making a cherry pie this weekend, and I have to admit, the cherry pies I make have been delicious but runny. I'm looking for suggestions for thickening. Part of my problem is that I don't make pie often enough to remember from time to time what I did, so I may be making the same mistakes over and over . I generally use the Joy of Cooking recipe, which calls for 5 cups of fruit and 3 to 3.5 T of corn starch for a lattice pie, and I think I use a little extra corn starch because I remember it ran the last time.

Variables include that I am using frozen (tart) cherries. The bag says to use the cherries frozen; last time, I let them thaw a bit to soak into the corn starch. My pie dish was shallow last time, and overflowed; I have bought a deeper dish now. Pretty sure we let the pie cool before cutting it last time (after I asked for advice about runny galettes and learned that they get less runny as they cool, but we had never let one cool before, we always munched it down warm).

Your thoughts and advice will be appreciated!

Judy H wrote:I am going to be making a cherry pie this weekend, and I have to admit, the cherry pies I make have been delicious but runny. I'm looking for suggestions for thickening. Part of my problem is that I don't make pie often enough to remember from time to time what I did, so I may be making the same mistakes over and over . I generally use the Joy of Cooking recipe, which calls for 5 cups of fruit and 3 to 3.5 T of corn starch for a lattice pie, and I think I use a little extra corn starch because I remember it ran the last time.

Variables include that I am using frozen (tart) cherries. The bag says to use the cherries frozen; last time, I let them thaw a bit to soak into the corn starch. My pie dish was shallow last time, and overflowed; I have bought a deeper dish now. Pretty sure we let the pie cool before cutting it last time (after I asked for advice about runny galettes and learned that they get less runny as they cool, but we had never let one cool before, we always munched it down warm).

Your thoughts and advice will be appreciated!

Judy,

here's a link to what I have done for cherry pie, and I almost always use sour cherries which I have frozen (and then thawed). I'm not sure about "cups" because I typically weigh 1.5 lbs of fully thawed cherries (weighed after all juices have dripped). I then use 3/4 - 1 cup of the reserved juice and cook it with 3-4 Tbsp of corn starch (4 Tbsp. if I'm using a whole cup of juice) and lemon juice if I have any concern about some of the cherries being too sweet. I don't mind a pie being a bit runny because a prefer it to overly thickened fruit pies, but if you don't want it runny at all you might even want to add another teaspoon or so of cornstarch. And yes, the pie will be far more runny when hot.

Once that mixture has really thickened (you'll know when b/c it will be pretty thick), I add to it any other flavoring I might want (usually almond extract). I let it cool down slightly and then mix gently with the cherries making sure that I maintain the shape of the cherries (I like having the cherries whole in the finished pie). Good luck and happy baking.

I use tapioca instead of corn starch when I make cherry pie. I also make the filling on top of the stove before putting it into the unbaked crust; this way I know how thick it is before it goes into the oven. This is pretty fool-proof. (I also add some lemon juice to brighten it up, and pat some butter before putting the top crust on.)

I think cherry pie is always a little too runny or too gloppy. Finding the middle is tough I also use Minute tapioca for my thickening.

BR, thanks, I followed your recipe, more or less, and the pie was terrific. My 1.5 lbs of frozen cherries only dripped barely 3/4 cup of juice (but I was in a hurry, so more might have come eventually). I was desperately trying to change a couple of florescent light bulbs whilst cooking the juice with corn starch (bad idea, I know, I know) and the stuff got away from me and turned very gloppy and lumpy, and I beat it until most of the lumps were out, then mixed it with the sugar and cherries kind of fearing the worst. I had bought a deep pie plate (to avoid overflows), so the cherries didn't fill it, so I added a layer of still frozen cherries on top, and then the lattice. The juice was thick but still a bit runny, just perfect. (and no lumps remained)

Imperfections not related to runnyness: the edges of the crust were overcooked and the lattice undercooked. The bottom crust was a bit soggy. None of that was disastrous.

Mostly it was delicious.

Judy H wrote:BR, thanks, I followed your recipe, more or less, and the pie was terrific. My 1.5 lbs of frozen cherries only dripped barely 3/4 cup of juice (but I was in a hurry, so more might have come eventually). I was desperately trying to change a couple of florescent light bulbs whilst cooking the juice with corn starch (bad idea, I know, I know) and the stuff got away from me and turned very gloppy and lumpy, and I beat it until most of the lumps were out, then mixed it with the sugar and cherries kind of fearing the worst. I had bought a deep pie plate (to avoid overflows), so the cherries didn't fill it, so I added a layer of still frozen cherries on top, and then the lattice. The juice was thick but still a bit runny, just perfect. (and no lumps remained)

Imperfections not related to runnyness: the edges of the crust were overcooked and the lattice undercooked. The bottom crust was a bit soggy. None of that was disastrous.

Mostly it was delicious.

Glad to hear it worked out. Using a tip from the Pie and Pastry Bible, I have taken to baking fruit pies on a pre-heated pizza stone on the bottom of the oven. I find that this method helps me avoid the issue with soggy bottom crusts.