Before horror (left) and after (right) — so much better, but the door is still gunky.

Day 4 Task: Deep clean

You know things are serious when it’s 10:30 at night and your oven is caked in baking soda, your oven racks are soaking in the bathtub, your tea kettle is bubbling with boiling water to pour over your stovetop grates, and your husband is on his hands and knees washing the floor with a sponge because you realized too late you didn’t have a mop in the house. (I swear I told him to stop!)

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Q: What can I do with a bunch of cinnamon sticks? I just realized that I have more whole cinnamon sticks than any one kitchen probably needs.

Sent by Anna

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Open Grower Tour

Who: Don Gregory of Cherry Bay Orchards
What: Tart Cherries
Where: Traverse City and Leelanau County, Michigan

This summer I took a jaunt to the beautiful shores of northern Michigan with a pack of food writers and dietitians to see how cherries — tart cherries, to be precise — are grown, harvested, and sent to market. This was thrilling, to be perfectly frank, because if I could choose just one fruit to eat, cherries would be near the top of the list, and tart cherries are a particular passion as they are certainly my favorite fruit to bake with.

But why am I showing you this now? Isn’t the cherry season long over? Well, that’s the thing about tart cherries: did you know that 99% of them are actually frozen or preserved? They’re too delicate to ship fresh. This means that it’s actually tart cherry season all year round, at least in my house. Here’s a peek into how and where they’re grown, some of the challenges facing the industry, and why I have a bag of tart cherries in my freezer right now.

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