Traverse City, Michigan: National Cherry Festival

Every once in awhile something happens, and I have to pinch myself to make sure it’s real.  Things like waking up every morning with the mountains in my backyard, being surrounded by amazing friends and family and love all over my life, and realizing that I’m living my lifelong dream of writing regardless of what capacity that is at any given time.

This past week has been a flurry of so many of those moments, those experiences that I can add to the list of Pinch-Me-I’m-Dreaming.  Immediately following a long weekend in San Diego (more on that soon), I had the honor and privilege of attending Traverse City, Michigan’s National Cherry Festival with some of the brightest and most talented chefs, scientists, food writers, travel writers, bloggers, and eaters I’ve ever met.  The Cherry Marketing Institute (and their marketing group) was kind enough to arrange two days of events and learning, tasting, and cherry pit-spitting experiences for us.

We arrived Tuesday night and immediately went to dinner at the Boathouse Restaurant on the West Bay surrounding the peninsula that juts up north of Traverse City.

{photo credit: Cherry Marketing Institute}

I was – and still am! – so intrigued by how many different ways cherries can be prepared and served, and can’t wait to incorporate so many of these techniques in my own cooking.  This dinner itself included cherry chutney, cherry vinaigrette, dried cherries, and cherries jubilee for dessert – among others!

Dinner started off with cherry cocktails.  Naturally, I opted for the Cherry Mimosa – tart cherry juice with some bubbles.  Delicious!  And the perfect refreshing start to our four-course dinner.

The second course – following duck confit and a cheese plate – was this amazing salad: Apple Beet, spinach, goat cheese, candy cane beets, walnuts, apple threads, cherry vinaigrette.  Unreal flavors, and while I’ve always been one to top my salads with dried cherries and nuts of some sort, I’m relatively new to beets and am now convinced that they need to be in my diet more often.

For the main course, we had the option of a filet mignon or a ahi tuna.  The foodie in me loved the chance to “splurge” on the duck confit, but the pescetarian in me opted for the fish.  I’d have plenty of time for breaking pescetarian rules later…

The Ahi Tuna was served rare (perfect), crusted with sesame seeds and sitting on a bed of purple sticky rice (cool!), radish salad, sweet cherry chili, and served with srirachi sauce brushed on the corner of the plate (beautiful presentation!).  It was amazing.  I did try a bite of Syd‘s filet, and they nailed that too.

Our group wined and dined and chatted, and as it always is one of my favorite parts about so many things, I really enjoyed the conversations with each blogger, marketer, and cherry fanatic.  We had a great mix of people from all over (Louisiana, Texas, California, Vancouver, Colorado, Florida, etc.) with such different backgrounds but a common thread was that everyone I spoke with who spoke about their craft – be it cooking, family, eating, photography, writing, hosting an online TV show, traveling, or jumping out of planes – is absolutely silly passionate about what it is they’re doing.

And we all know that’s contagious.

This was the view from the patio where we enjoyed this four-course dinner.  We faced Bowers Harbor and looked west over the water to see this sunset.  Amazing, huh?

We went to bed full of some new knowledge and insight about cherries and the places they come from as well as full of deliciously and artfully prepared cherry sustenance.

Next up: More pictures!  We spent the next day exploring the area, meeting the growers, learning about the harvesting and production, and experiencing the famous National Cherry Festival.

Photo credit: They’re mine! Unless I noted otherwise.