It's cherry season

If you drive around here right now you will see cherry trees laden with deep red fruit. These are not orchards I'm talking about, but trees in people's gardens. Along with apple trees, most people with a little land have one or more cherry trees as well. We have one, but it's not a good variety. I describe the fruit as a pit with a layer of skin around it.

Sunday's dessert: clafoutis de cerises.

But we do get good cherries from our neighbors' trees and several trees out by the vineyard. The land those trees are one belongs to someone who lives in another part of town, and there is never a rush to pick the fruit, so we go out and pick some when it's ripe. If we don't, the birds will.

This year we've been especially fortunate in that some friends who just moved a couple of towns over have a huge cherry tree in their yard, and they've brought us bags (literally) filled with ripe fruit. And what do you do with cherries? Sauces, preserves, and clafoutis. I made this clafoutis for our Sunday dessert and it was very tasty.

Nothing is more simple to make than a clafoutis. It's an egg custard poured over whole cherries and baked. The cherries are not even pitted in most French recipes. You can pit them if you prefer, but the French say the flavor is better if they're not pitted. No one thinks twice about piling up the pits on their plates as they savor the dish. And, according to Miss Manners (Judith Martin), it is not impolite to remove pits from your mouth at the table, as long as they come out the same way they went in; that is, on your fork or spoon.