Saturday, May 26, 2007

Life is a Bowl of Cherries ... From Linden

Shopping at the markets today, I saw cherries everywhere. And I love it because this was one of my favorite fruits growing up, especially the Bing cherries with its dark ruby color and crunchy texture. The cherries above, of course, are Rainier cherries and they're from the fruit stand of James Paoletti Farms, a farmer from Linden, Calif. It was his first week at the Ferry Building Farmers' Market in San Francisco and he'll be there for the next few weeks during the cherry season, which last less than a month. He was selling his cherries for $5.50 for a small basket (a little more than a pound) and a big basket for $11. I thought he had the nicest display of all the farmers selling cherries today. (The other farmers were selling their cherries by the pound for $6 to $7. At my local Safeway, cherries were going for $8.99 a pound. So it pays off to support the small farmers at the farmers market instead.) I got a basket of the bing cherries. They were sweet but not as crunchy. I'm hoping it gets crunchier in a couple of weeks.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I buy my cherries here in the San Jose area from the Olsen Cherry stand in Sunnyvale. I went to school with the Olsens (many MANY years ago when their orchards were everywhere around here) so I've always been partial to their cherries.

Single Guy Ben said...

Thanks for the insider info rene. So is Olsen Cherries primarily bing or do they have others? Have you tried them yet this season? Are they crunchy yet? The Linden cherries I have have been mixed. So crunchy, some not. But still tasty.

Anonymous said...

They offered several kinds of cherries at their stand. The ones we had were "okay", tasty but maybe a little over ripe (our fault for forgetting them :(