A Royal Mess

I made a royal mess for Father’s Day. For EcoDaddyo’s first Father’s Day, we made a cherry pie. I would love to claim all the credit for its deliciousness but pitting 2-3 pounds of cherries was a messy two person job.

The various parts of a pie were assembled the night before. That way the pie dough had a good long chill and we had evening time to pit cherries after the little one went to bed. I guess the real present to DaddyO was the space that using three bags of frozen cherries opened up in the freezer; three bags of frozen sour cherries from Shiraz Vineyards courtesy of Beneficial Farms. What a bonanza! It is impossible to find sour/pie cherries in the store and who wants to use that goopy canned cherry pie filling?

The thawed cherries defied my cherry pitter tool so it was all handwork. After what seemed like forever, we had a sufficient amount of fruit, a good glass of cherry juice, and a direction to go the next day.

Sunday morning, before the heat got too much, I turned on the oven, mixed up filling, rolled out pie dough and assembled. With all the parts in place, making an attractive lattice crust was the hardest part. An hour and change later, out came a bubbling pie that cooled that afternoon. I kept stopping by the kitchen counter to admire it. Delicious, gorgeous, summer in pie form.