Life is just a bowl . . .

Dark, sweet cherries in a vintage ironstone bowl. Mmmmmm! The cherry-print napkin isn’t vintage—I got it from Crate & Barrel maybe a dozen years ago, back when they offered retro print linens.

Raise your hand if you love fresh, sweet, juicy cherries.

Great, now just keep your hand up there, I mean both hands actually, nice and high, while I, um, . . . polish off the last few cherries in this giant bag of Washington state fruit I got in the supermarket.

Yum.

[wipes chin]

Okay, you can put your hands down now.

Fresh cherries have gotta be one the of the nicest things about late summer. (Fresh native peaches have gotta be one of the other nice things!)

And while I could easily eat them out of hand by the gallon, sometimes it’s fun to do a little baking with them, too.

Except I always think that if I wanted to eat cooked cherries, I’d just crack open a can of cherry pie filling. Once you cook them, cherries lose a lot in the color and texture departments.

Okay, more cherries after you click here!