Aaron - Aw, if only I’d known the aluminum foil trick! I was so speechless when they had just disappeared. I went home for my mom’s birthday, so maybe that date’s a good marker for next year’s cherries, too.

And yeah, the boysenberry that I tried was just how you described — I had no idea beforehand — but I was so smitten by the ollalieberry name and mystique that I went for them instead, even though they weren’t as luscious or sweet. Next time, and in the future, it’ll be boysenberries.

And OMG, I was home in NJ for a long weekend, and I discovered that my parents have a sour cherry tree! There were even a few sour cherries left, so I had plans to make a pie, or as much of a compote as possible if necessary, the following day… but they didn’t last that long! Overnight, they either disappeared (from birds) or just went bad (I saw some black, shriveled things on the branches) — I still don’t know exactly what happened to them so suddenly. At least I got to try exactly two cherries while they lasted… and there were also wild black raspberries to forage for.

Btw, I was excited to see greengage plums at the farmer’s market this morning. Grab them if you see them, too — they’re really amazing — either out of hand or preserved to take to NYC.