Food Nirvana

It's that time of year again, my friends. A time that I look forward to throughout all of the cold dark rainy (yes...rainy, we'll get to that in a bit) winter months. It's finally here. I made a trip to the grocery store on Sunday night and while perusing the fruit (much of which was buy-one-get-one) I saw the item I crave above all others.......the finest fruit (mayhaps the finest food substance) that nature has ever provided us............Rainier Cherries. Grown in only one part of this vast world (one more positive stroke for the Pacific Northwest. They have these cherries in spades for the low low market price of $2.50 a pound. It was all I could do not to bring back 20 pounds with me from my last excursion....as it was I ended up with 5 pounds and had to eat them much more quickly than I would have liked.), these cherries are a prize to be coveted even at their $4+ a pound price. It's the limited availability and the fact that they're so so so so superior to all others of their kind that makes them completely worth the price I have to pay and the very long wait in between.

I just spent 20 minutes eating 10 cherries (yes, I carefully ration them out every day so that I keep from eating them all at once.....I want to enjoy my $4 fruit for the maximum length of time while still getting return on my investment (i.e. before they go bad)). For those of you doing the math at home this equals approximately 2 minutes per cherry. No, they aren't gargantuan in size....I just firmly believe in taking as much time as possible to eat them so as to (again) maximize my length of enjoyment and treat this most superior of fruits with the respect and gratitude it deserves. Oh, I won't say it doesn't get hard near the end to just eat them at a breakneck pace in an attempt to satisfy your tongue more and more and more and more..........it's just that I know that it will be so much more worth it in the end if I enjoy every single rare second I get to experience in food nirvana.