Cherries in Salad

You know how people say “pretty please with a cherry on top?” but the visual you get, from that request, is of an ice cream sundae with chocolate sauce and whipped cream? From now on, I want you to think about salad. Because cherries taste really good in salad. No, not cherries from a jar, I’m talking about cherries that show up, in season (like: now) at the farmer’s market. Look at the cherries in the picture above (which I procured from the West Hollywood farmer’s market) and tell me you’re not craving cherries. Well, crave them in salad.

You won’t be impressed with my take on the idea of “cherries in salad” because I kind of threw this together in a hurry to go with leftover mac and cheese.

Basically, I sliced up Persian cucumbers (also from the farmer’s market), onion, and threw in a few pitted cherries, tossing everything with olive oil, red wine vinegar, salt and pepper. It was almost like a pickled cherry salad which was nice and acidic against the mac and cheese. But, no, not a triumph.

The real triumph came a few nights later at Mark and Diana’s house. Diana made a salad with cherries so good I’m going to copy her and make this and claim it was my idea.

It’s arugula, cherries, and–the key ingredient–really good blue cheese (shipped from Murray’s in New York as a birthday gift from her sister). The sweet cherries combined with the blue cheese and whatever Diana used to dress the salad (olive oil, and balsamic? Or just red wine vinegar? Either will work) was one of the best bites of salad I’ve had in a long time.

So go get yourself a carton of cherries and start making salad. If you have one cherry leftover at the end you can put it on top of your ice cream sundae which you deserve after eating salad for dinner.