I absolutely LOVE cherries. Artificial cherry flavour has a bad reputation, but it’s my absolute favourite fake flavour (lollipops, jello, popsicles). I love fresh cherries even more than fake ones and nothing says summer to me more than cherries. Growing up in Vancouver meant that summertimes were made for road-tripping it down to the Okanagan Valley to pick fruit at all the U-Pick orchards.
Sometimes my whole extended family would go on a camping trip together, but my favourite times were when it was just the four of us, me, my mom and dad, and Kevin. We’d pack a tent, bring some buckets and live the fruit picking life for a couple of weeks. No TV, no phones (smart phones didn’t exist back then!), just the stars, the barbecue and massive fruit orchards.
My dad would insist on driving around to all the orchards to find the best u-pick price. My mom would be more concerned about the quality of fruit and whether or not pesticides were used. Kevin and I would just be itching to get out of the van. Fruit picking is a lot of fun and a lot of hard work. Still, we were pretty quick about the whole thing – the ladder would come out, trees would be climbed, fruit would be picked. On our way home, our little van would be packed to the brim full of peaches, cherries and apricots. After the long and winding drive, we’d invite our family and friends over to help themselves to the free fruit stand we’d set up in our backyard. Those trips were always my favourite part of summer.
Sadly, I haven’t gone to pick cherries in a long time now. Happily though, my Whole Foods carries locally sourced BC cherries. I partnered up with them today to bring you this post and a giveaway! Whole Foods is giving away a $50 gift card to one lovely reader.
To enter: please leave a comment below with your favourite childhood summer food memory. Giveaway ends on July 22nd at 12AM PST. Open to US or Canadian residents only. Winner will be chosen by a random number generator. Good luck!
UPDATE: Yay! Cindy M, get ready to go shopping because you just won a $50 Whole Foods gift card! Congrats!
Easy Pistachio Cherry Tart Recipe
makes 9 tarts
- 1/2 sheet store bought puff pastry, thawed
- 1/4 cup ricotta
- 2 tablespoons cream cheese
- 2 tablespoons honey, or to taste
- 14 cherries, halved and pitted
- 2 tablespoons chopped pistachios
Cut the puff pastry into 9 equal pieces and poke all over with fork so they don’t puff too much in the oven. Bake according to the package. While the puff is baking, whip together the ricotta, cream cheese and honey until fluffy and smooth. Adjust to taste. When the puff is ready, cool and if needed, flatten slightly so the cherries have a nice level plane to sit on. When cool, spread with ricotta mix, top with cherry halves and chopped pistachios. Enjoy!
We were always in the big garden my grandparents kept. They still keep one, but at 88 years old it’s much, much smaller now. We picked berries and veggies. We spent hours on the big front porch snapping beans, shelling peas, shucking corn – you name it.
we had a garden and i love remembering growing our dinner!
I would say my favorite summer food memory is when my Aunt would bring fresh peaches from Oregon and we would can them!
Picking blackberries with my Mum on the side of the road and eating more than I picked. We then went home and made homemade blackberry cobbler… HEAVEN!
my favorite summer food memory is when i was a little kid, and was still living in korea..
i remember the hot blazing days of being outside, and i’d be super excited to see my grandma bring out the fresh watermelon slices!
they were my favorite, especially after she finger-picked the seeds out for me :)
My favorite childhood summer food memory is eating popsicles and freeze pops when it was 90-some degrees.
Lake fishing for bass and walleye, then returning to our waterfront rental house to fillet and cook those suckers for dinner.
Every 4th of July my family and a bunch of friends would all cook breakfast in the park on camp stoves and then have a big potluck meal.
Crepes filled with fruit and vanilla ice cream! They only happened in the summertime, but ohhh wow were they good.
We lived in a small town in BC that had extreme seasons, blistering bone dry hot in the summer, and waist high snow (I was a kid) in the winter.
There was only one grocery store in town, that always carried the same apples, oranges and bananas year round. Every summer, my dad would pack us into our Chevy Nova to the Okanagan in search of fresh fruit. We would come home with 20 lb boxes of just picked pears, ice cream pails of bing cherries…My favorite was the peaches, each prize nestled separately on cardboard hollows. While I could grab a a crisp pear out of the box anytime, my mother rationed those peaches! She canned peaches for 2 days in that hot steamy kitchen, just so we could enjoy the sweet taste of summer in the dead of winter.