The Pits.

Last week at the store, Lilah and I were both enchanted by the big, fat bags of cherries.

"Me need cherries, Mommy."

I don't think she's ever eaten a cherry, so I'm not sure how she decided she "needed" them, but since they were only $1.99 a pound, and that big bag just pregnant with cherries looked so pretty sitting there on the shelf, I decided that me needed some cherries, too, and we got a bag.

When we got home, I decided she should have some. Since she had picked them out and asked SO nicely for them, she could get the first ones. So I washed them and started to get them ready when I remembered that cherries have pits.

Oops.

Give me some grace - I'm from peach country, not cherry country. And while picking cherries is on my life's to-do list, the closest I've managed to come so far is playing "Hi-Ho, Cherry-O" as a kid.

So I attacked the cherry like a peach - cut it in half, scoop out the pit.

And I did this for about 6 cherries until I realized that this was going to be a lot of work, making cherries safely edible for a little kid who, after eating a couple of them said, "Me not want these. Me not like them."

So now I'm stuck with this giant bag full of cherries. Cherries full of pits. And I was not going to stand in the kitchen for a million years and pit them all like teensie peaches. So began my search for a cherry pitter.

I didn't want to wait for one I could order online, but I did go online so I could know what I was looking for, and found that OXO made one that was cheap, had good ratings and would be just fine for my cherry pitting purposes.

I thought it would be so easy - I thought I would just run into WalMart, grab some cat food and a cherry pitter and be on my way.

I didn't count on my adled brain making me forget while I was in there.

Three times I went to WalMart. Three times I forgot to even go through the food gadget section.

THREE TIMES.

The cherries were waiting for me.

So Sunday after church, Lilah and I ran into Target, because I figured they'd surely have a cherry pitter, and it was on the way home, and I was actually remembering to look for the cherry pitter.

Target did not have a cherry pitter.

Target did have a strawberry huller.

Because that's such a difficult task it needs a specialized piece of equipment.

*insert eye-roll here*

So I went back to Wal-Mart. For a 4th time. And guess what?

No cherry pitters.

I FINALLY just gave up and went to Williams-Sonoma and picked up a pitter there. It was the one I had seen online and it was front and center in the store.

I knew I should have just gone there first.

So I spent about 30 minutes pitting cherries this morning with my new cherry pitter.

Let me just tell you. Pitting cherries is gruesome.

I looked like I'd done murder.


And despite the handy-dandy "splatter shield" on the pitter, my entire kitchen resembled a crime scene. Apparently, cherries, when they are gutted, like to bleed everywhere.

All that's missing from this scene is some bad sunglasses acting.

Or a hot viking vampire.

All this mess to eradicate these little guys. And you know what? I felt a very odd sense of satisfaction every time I managed to pit the pit with the stem still attached. Like I was going to win a prize for the best pit.

Surely they make medication for that.

And now I'm left with this beautiful quart of pitted cherries, and I need to decide - today - what to do with them. I have a few ideas, and none of them are pies. Here's a factoid about me: I do not love pie. I'll eat them. I'll bake them. But generally, I don't like them. Especially fruit pies.

Blech.

So stay tuned to see what might happen with the cherries.

And maybe it won't take me 6 weeks to post about it.