Perfect Pickled Bing Cherries

Ah cherries. Occasionally, in your call for bing-related bliss, you deceive. For starters, life is not always a bowl full of you. No, we've been sorely misinformed. Sometimes life feels more like a rectangular Pyrex dish full of vinegar.

Now, I'm not a pessimist. I am neither a realist nor a dreamer. I like to think of myself as an optimistic cynic. (I've never looked good in rose-colored glasses, but I'm fairly certain a black beret would look just as ridiculous.)

Which is why I'm so in love with these pickled cherries at the moment. If you soak a bowl full of cherries in vinegar you get what I might call "life," in real time. Sweet and sour.

Sometimes life is rosey. Sometimes life makes your face pucker. Sometimes the glass is half full. Sometimes it's half empty. And sometimes, you mix yourself a perfect manhattan—the one with equal parts sweet and dry vermouth—and then proceed to slug it: in which case, whatever was in that glass is gone, baby gone.

Just like these cherries will be, when you determine they can hang with pretty much anything, from your salad course straight through till dessert. They'd even be a fine stand-in for the maraschino cherry in [throat clear] a manhattan. They are the perfect cherry-on-top kind of cherry, if it's not feeling like an ice cream sundae kind of summer. (Perhaps it's feeling more like manhattan swilling season?)

And if you are anything like me, things oscillate somewhere in the middle. So between the sundaes and stiff drinks, try to squeeze in some pickled cherries every now and again. They are the perfect neutralizer for a less-than-perfect life.

Pickled Bing Cherries

1.5 cups vinegar

2 tbsp sugar

4 cardamom pods, smashed

5 cloves

10 pink peppercorns

1 tsp grains of paradise

1/2 tsp kosher salt

Pinch of mace

Peel of 1 orange, pith removed

1 serrano pepper, split lengthwise and then cut into small chunks

About 2 cups cherries, pitted

Combine first 9 ingredients in a saucepan and heat until just boiling. While mixture is coming to a boil, place the cherries and the serrano pepper in a heatproof bowl. Pour the boiling vinegar mixture over the cherries and peppers and let cool to room temperature. Refrigerate.

Makes about 2 cups of pickled cherries (plus cherry vinegar!)

Notes:

-If you don't have grains of paradise you can substitute a few black peppercorns.

-It's best to let this sit a day or two before fully enjoying the, ahem, fruits of your labor.

-For my money (and oddly for my pleasure) I've found the best way to pit cherries is with a large paperclip. A trick passed down to me by my grandmother. She's made a few cherry pies in her day ...

-This recipe was adapted from this one.

When Life Gives You Lemons, Make Lemon Lavender Marmalade

Life has officially mellowed into a blithe, carefree July; the summer sun has a way of bleaching your worries away. It’s probably good practice to carry a breezy July attitude with you, through all of the seasons of your life. Reactions to any problem seem less severe; maybe it’s the heat.

I’ve started to think that pretty much anything life throws at you can be confronted with one of two statements: A) Oh well. B) We’ll see. Have you burnt the roast? Oh well. Afraid you’ll spend the rest of your life alone, spoon-feeding marmalade to the clowder of cats you swore you’d never acquire? We’ll see. Turns out, you can’t plan your life ‘perfect’: it will go exactly the opposite.

This reminds me of a great quote from a Chicago Tribune column, by Mary Schmich: “Don’t worry about the future; or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubblegum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind; the kind that blindside you at 4 pm on some idle Tuesday." How true.

In sixth grade, I unintentionally made a wreath out of poison ivy; I had to take steroids for a week until my rashy, swollen face deflated and I had something that resembled a nose again. (It was terrifying to go from sixth grader to sumo wrestler look-alike.) Then there was the time I was brought flowers from a man I loved and was dumped after dinner. Life has a wicked sense of humor. You have to make some room for the unexpected: the pleasant and the icky.

And just last week two unexpected things made my day. To start, I—completely by random occurrence—picked the right ‘day of the week’ underwear from my lingerie drawer. (Tuesday!) The very same day, a man riding a unicycle (unicycle!) literally crossed my path on the way to the gym. You never can tell when life will send you a unicyclist or wreath made of poison ivy, you just have to roll with it.

Case in point: a few weeks ago I was on the Cape with my mom; we were not having very good beach weather. We had sucked it up on yet another overcast, drizzly day and headed out to the Cape Cod Lavender Farm. I had never seen so many intensely purple plants in one space. Walking around the farm felt like an impromptu aromatherapy treatment.

We would have never known such a place existed if it wasn't for the dreary weather. Inside an old wooden shed at the farm lavender soaps, lavender chocolates and lemon lavender marmalade were for sale. I flashed to a vision of me sitting out on my porch, spreading homemade lemon lavender marmalade on toast on a lazy Saturday morning, surrounded by bushy lavender plants.

Unfortunately, buying a lavender plant to transplant back home would have been cruel to the plant and, ultimately, an exercise in futility. My back patio just does not get enough sun. Oh well. Hopefully, some day I will have a sun-drenched back porch to plant my own mini lavender farm. We’ll see. In the meantime, all I can do is buy lemons, have the good fortune to score some flowering lavender from my mother, and get down to marmalade making; all the while, doing my best to turn life’s lemons into edible aromatherapy to have with toast.

So if you find the grind a little too intense, you really have quite a number of options. A) Say oh well and get on with it. B) Take a deep-bellied breath and repeat after me: we’ll see. C) Take matters into your own hands and make lemon marmalade ASAP or D) Strap on a helmet, make sure your underwear doesn’t say Monday if it’s actually Tuesday, and head out to face the world on your unicycle.

For best results: do all of the above.

Lemon Lavender Marmalade

2 pounds of lemons (about 6, preferably organic because you will be eating the peel)

5 cups sugar

5 cups water

Pinch of salt

1.5 tbsp lavender flowers (fresh)

1 tsp vanilla extract

Thinly slice your lemons and then cut them in half. Place them into a pot and add the sugar, water and salt; bring to a boil. Let the lemon mixture sit overnight. The next day, add half your lavender and let simmer for about 2 hours, stirring occasionally. Then, bring the marmalade up to a boil and stir frequently for about another 30 minutes. Skim off any foam that forms. If you have a candy thermometer (you lucky person, you) you know the marmalade is done when it is around 220 degrees. You can also place a little marmalade on a plate and stick it in the refrigerator for a few minutes to see what the finished consistency will be: you want it to be firm, not too runny or too hard. Add the rest of the lavender and vanilla extract.

Makes about 5 cups.

Notes:

As luck would have it, I gave myself a deadline to make this recipe that happened to fall during the heat wave, when temperatures reached 100 degrees; this was a true labor of love. Maybe it was the 2 plus hours I spent boiling lemons in a non-air conditioned studio apartment, but making this marmalade was oddly cathartic.

Recipes will say you can let the marmalade sit at room temperature overnight. I am fairly certain these proper marmalade-making souls are sane enough to have the modern luxury of air conditioning. All bets are off when it's over 90 degrees; I refrigerated the marmalade overnight.

Since I despise the process of canning (maybe it's the lack of air conditioning), I just froze the extras. I can neither confirm, nor deny, that the amount of sugar used is appropriate for canning.

If you don't want to go through the trouble, you can order this marmalade straight from the Cape Cod Lavender Farm. I was not going to shell out 8 dollars for a jar.