Monday, January 12, 2009

I do not know how to pit a cherry.

The fingers of my right hand look like Lady Macbeth's this morning because I decided to have cherries with plain yogurt for breakfast. I don't own a cherry pitter, and my first attempt to remove pits with a vegetable knife threated to cover my hands in real blood, not cherry juice. Ultimately I just tore the cherries in half and dug the pits out with my thumbs, and God only knows how long it will take to get that cherry stain off my thumbnails.

One of these days I will take a cooking class just so I can learn the basic kitchen skills of peeling, dicing and seeding. I can do all of those things, of course, but it's messy and inefficient and I always feel like I wind up throwing too much food away.

I've been on a major cherry kick lately, so it might be time to invest in a pitter. Do they work, and if so how? I'm fascinated by specialized tools and gadgets, and if I had the money and the kitchen space I'd own a lot of them.

6 comments:

Peggy & Scott said...

I have cherry pitter-I think I got it at Tuesday Morning. Pitting cherries is messy even with a pitter. You end up looking like you've been shot. There was a tip in my Cuisine At Home mag about using the pitter under water. It would take care of the spatter problem but you'd have your hand in cherry water and more dishes to wash.Oh well-it's all worth it. Good cherries are such a treat!

Anonymous said...

Cherry pitters are really useful, you can use them for olives too. You put the cherry in and then push the lever that drives a piston into the cherry and the pit pops out the other side.

What I'm wondering is where all these winter cherries are coming from. It seems like this is the first winter I've seen cherries. Even in grocery stores they've always been one of those things that are so seasonal.

-kathleen

Ellen Clair Lamb said...

I was wondering the same thing -- the bag says "Product of Chile."

I'm willing to make an exception to my local food resolution for this.

Anonymous said...

I'm sure Alton Brown has the answer somewhere. He knows all.

lawlis42 said...

I've used a cherry pitter before with no great success. I've also gone the paring knife route, also to no great success. To let you (and whoever else reads your edifying tome) The best way I've found, however, and this is only if I want pitted cherried for something that is exclusively for me - I put them in my mouth, do some voodoo magic with my tongue and teeth and suck the pit out.

lawlis42 said...

(sorry - my previous post was interrupted by my friend Molly sharing something particularly funny hence the not so great sentence structure.I'm sure you got my drift.)