In Door County, ‘
life is just a bowl of cherries’
Pamela
O’Meara
It’s cherry season
now in Door County, Wisconsin, and thousands of cherry trees are laden with
bright the bright red fruit. You can pick your own Montmorency tart cherries or buy them at cherry
stands and shops along the road, eat a variety of dishes that feature cherries
and learn the history of cherries.
 |
| Apple cherry hard cider tastings are held at Island Orchard Cider |
That’s what I did
recently.
In the 1950s and
‘60s Door County reigned supreme as the nation’s cherry capital with more than a
million cherry trees. While the Traverse City, Michigan area now claims the
title, Door County is still the place to go for
cherries.
The Door County peninsula, a finger of
land north of Green Bay, is surrounded by the water of Lake Michigan. During the mid-May
to October the
tourist
season, a variety of colorful flowers are in bloom around the family-owned
restaurants and lodgings. The quaint villages nestled in the bays are clean and
welcoming. People are friendly. The beaches with their sparkling water and sea
gulls flying around are inviting. Hiking, bicycling, kayaking and other summer
sports, summer theaters and lighthouses are popular attractions.
Some call it the Cape
Cod of the Midwest.
The rolling farm
land in the middle of the peninsula is a rocky limestone underneath with just a
little topsoil. Early settlers discovered that cherry trees flourished there
because they have a shallow root system suitable for this shallow
soil.
 |
| Dale
Seaquist, talks
about growing and harvesting cherries. |
At Seaquist
Orchards in Sister Bay, owner Dale Seaquist talked about his 1,000-acre orchard,
the largest in Door County, and told us that nowadays he uses a machine that
shakes the trees and captures the falling cherries in an upside-down umbrella
gadget and uses a drum-like machine to pits thousands of cherries in minutes. We
watched preparations for baking cherry pies and browed around the cherry store
to sample cherry fudge, cherry salsa, cherry jam and
more.
Then after picking
some cherries, we made cherry bounce, which I had never heard of. We washed our
cherries and then packed a pint jar two-thirds full, added about 1/3 cup sugar
and filled the remaining space with brandy. I’m saving it for a Christmas drink
and garnish.
 |
| Tourists climb around the rocks along the water in one of the small towns. |
Out in the
country, Country Ovens has dehydrators that produce Montmorency tart dried
cherries and more recently, tart cherry juice full of antioxidants they are
marketing to college and professional sports teams like the University of
Minnesota. We sampled the cherry juice, cherry trail mix, salsa and jam and
bought dried cherries to take home.
Since it’s the cherry season, and
tart cherries are often touted as having powerful anti-inflammatory properties,
I decided to eat as many dishes with cherries as I could.
So for my dinner the first night on the
expansive outdoor deck overlooking the bay at the Carrington Pub and Grill in Egg Harbor, part of the Landmark
Resort where I stayed for a few nights. I ordered a thick slab of tender pork
ribs with a sauce full of cherries, cherry crisp for dessert and wine with a
lovely red cherry essence.
 |
| Servers at Fred and Fuzzie's Waterfronnt Grill prepare to serve cherry margaritas. |
Breakfast the next morning at Bistro
at Liberty Square in Egg Harbor included cherry
oatmeal, French toast baked with walnuts and heaped with whole cherries plus a
glass of cherry juice. Then in Ellison Bay, we stopped at Island Orchard Cider
for a taste of hard cherry cider on the way to Wilson’s in Restaurant & Ice
Cream Parlor in the town of Ephraim where cherry ice cream, shakes and sodas
were featured.
At Rawleys Bay Resort
we enjoyed a dinner buffet of tilapia with a lemon cherry cream sauce, pork with
cherry sauce, chicken with cherries, creamed corn with cherries and dessert of
cherry pie, bars and cake, plus a drink of cherry juice, vodka and ginger ale.
Then I walked out to the pier there to look out at the water and charter fishing
boats and saw a mink, slick from the water, climbing among the
rocks.
The following day at the White Gull Inn in Fish Creek, we had
French toast stuffed with cherries and cream cheese, which was the winner of the
Best Breakfast in American Challenge on Good Morning America. Later, we stopped
at Fred & Fuzzie’s Waterfront Grill in Sister Bay, where we sat at picnic
tables on the lawn overlooking the sparkling bay for lunch. I ordered a cherry
chicken wrap served with a cherry margarita.
In between, we stopped at a Peninsula State Park overlook to see
Strawberry Island and across the bay, Marquette, Michigan. A bald eagle swooped
by. We climbed an old fire tower for an even better view. And we did a Segway
ride out in the country past a Seaquist cherry
orchard.
The traditional Door County fish boil at The Old Post Office
restaurant in Ephraim included cherry pie for desert. Fish is cooked outside in
a big kettle while everyone sits around in a circle watching. First in the
kettle is salt and then potatoes, onions, freshly caught whitefish. At the end
it is all flamed up high to cut the fat in the fish. The fish is
delicious. Afterwards, we saw a stunning red sunset over the
bay.
So there are lots of summer water and trail activities in Door
County. Eating all things cherry and learning the history of cherries is a
unique addition to a vacation at this time of the
year.
Photos By Pamela O'Meara
