Last Friday, I had a party at my house, and at least three people brought cherries to share. I had picked cherries at my dad’s place earlier in the week, so altogether we had a plethora of varieties to try—from store bought to hand-harvested, dark red to bright cerise, sweet to tart and in between.
A few days later, I stopped by a friend’s house to see her garden. She was just putting a cherry pie in the oven, made with cherries she had picked an hour earlier. Eating that pie—warm, straight out of the oven—was one of my top ten pie experiences. Not too sweet, perfectly flakey crust, gooey. It’s making me hungry just thinking about it now.
One of the things about this sudden overwhelming abundance of fruit is the need to preserve it. In times past, we might have had community for this—to come together and sit around pitting cherries for jam, drying them in the sun for winter snacks, puréeing them for fruit leather, gossiping while we worked. Today, much of this effort happens alone. But it still makes me happy—to lose myself in the meditation of repetitive tasks. To capture these sweet moments in time, the tender flesh of summer fruit, a mountain of ruby jewels.
Back in May, a friend gave me a baby cherry tree, a sapling from the tree on their property, which grows beside a river in the mountains. I planted it next to another cherry sapling, of a different variety, because apparently cherry trees need to be planted in pairs, each of a different kind, in order to properly fruit—they need a pollinating partner, the gardeners call it, which I find quite charming. It will take many years for these trees to make cherries. I may not even live here when they come to fruition. But it is always important to plant trees wherever we are, to plan for future harvests, to believe in the bounty of whatever lies ahead.
In a few weeks, we will have a flush of apricots. The city will turn orange. More pies, preserves, fruit leather—each an offering to the gifts of nature, a way to mark these gorgeous summer days, a delicious ritual of saying thanks.
You can find this week’s writing prompts below!
Here are this week’s writing prompts.
Try to find a quiet place where you can focus for 15-20 minutes. The point of this exercise is to write freely, without judgement, and see what comes out of your brain. You can answer each prompt question or start with the one that is most interesting and see where it takes you. Follow your mind, be present with the emotions coming up, and have fun. Try to keep writing for a full 15 minutes. It might sound like an intimidating amount of time, but I promise it will end up flying by. Just keep going!
What is your favorite summer fruit? What kind of desserts, preserves or other delicacies have you made using this fruit?
Write about a memory you have of an overwhelming abundance of summer fruit. What did you do with it? Did it rot on the ground, filling the air with an overpowering stench of sweetness? Did family or friends come together to preserve and eat it?
When you read the phrase, “a bowl of cherries”, what comes to mind? Are there any memories emerging?
Write a story about summer fruit and incorporate the following words: "bittersweet”, “lush”, “pulp”, and “mystery”
If you had some good insights or surprises from this writing exercise, share them in the comments below!
With love and gratitude,
Gina Rae
Thanks for reading Feed Me Figs! If you enjoyed this post, please share it.