Cherries

Grown in the lowlands of Murcia, southeastern Spain, where the Segura river and the hot Mediterranean sun have ripened Europe's earliest stone fruit for generations. Royal Tioga is the season's opener: large, deep mahogany red, the skin taut, the flesh properly aromatic. Picked by hand when the colour deepens but the stem is still green, the sugar just settling in. May into early June is their proper window, the first-cut fruit the largest and sweetest of the year. British cherries don't arrive until late June, so these are the bridge between rhubarb season and high summer. Eat them cold, from the bowl, with the stone in: the only honest way to start. The other move, the French one: pit a handful, macerate in red wine with sugar and a strip of lemon peel for an hour, spoon over vanilla ice cream. Or pan-roast a duck breast, render the skin slow, deglaze the fat with red wine and sherry vinegar, drop the cherries in for thirty seconds. Restaurant dinner at home in fifteen minutes.