what's in, what's out...

What are these tiny red spots on the trees? Yes, cherries!

We drove some 45 min out of Frankfurt to a nearby town just to buy our favourite cherries. You must be wondering why the trouble? 2 years back, Alan was told that Frauenstein produced the best cherries in this region around Frankfurt. So we followed the instructions given, drove along the motorway, exited at Wiesbaden-Frauenstein, bashed through the village and found the famous Kirschbluetenstrasse (literally translated into the street of cherry blossoms). We did not do the ritual last year due to the terribly mild winter in 06/07. Cherries were already in season as early as April. And by this time last year, we were back in Singapore for Alan's mid year review at his company. But this year, we return with a vengeance to get as much cherries and cherry produce as possible.

Just a little of 3 kgs of fresh cherries we bought.

Have you seen this type of cherries before? First thought: Gee, they look so sour!

But no, they tasted even sweeter than the classic dark burgundy ones!

I was told that this type of cherries is called Renee. Not only do they taste sugary sweet, their skin is also much more delicate/thinner. I think just like your Royal Gala, they get "bruised" easily. But it means that the skin goes down easily. Now I don't have to worry about Kristin spitting out the skin, though I have to convince her to give these cherries a chance. She's not buying the colour. They look ridiculously sour to her.

The classic good old cherries, yum!

This is definitely out. We drove past the strawberry patch on Sunday morning on our way to church. There were still people picking them, but I wonder how much they would harvest at the end of the day. With some luck, you can still find some sweet and aromatic ones at farm houses. However, self-harvesting isn't worth it anymore.

So that concluded our little excursion on a Saturday afternoon.