We had another ice cold fruit salad for a starter tonight. I had strawberries, cherries, a banana and a nectarine that had been sitting on the plate on the counter with the tomatoes for several days. The nectarine had really gotten soft and sweet and almost as fragrant as tree-ripened stone fruit. I just about cannot get a peach around here that will even ripen on the counter. I tried a bamboo chopstick to pit the cherries that I read about on one of the kitchen tips threads here. I found the best way was to ream a starter hole on the bottom of the cherry with the pointed end of the chopstick, and push out the pit with the blunt of end the chopstick from the stem end of the cherry. I lost a bit of juice, but it was quicker and better than trying to dig out the pit with a knife. I always end up with a bunch of cherry bits with a knife. The chopstick treatment resulted in whole, if a little cracked cherries and surprisingly clean pits. So, it's a definite improvement. It's so hot and humid here many of our counties are under heat advisories in the afternoons. The chilly fruit salad was perfect for the day.
I had a craving for Shake 'N Bake oven-fried chicken. I bought the store brand because it was almost a dollar cheaper, and as with the name brand, you have to use both packets for a whole chicken, and even when you do, it doesn't look like the picture on the front of the box. I always add a little flour and chicken seasoning salt, ground cayenne, and black pepper. This was good and satisfied a craving for it for another year or so. It always kills me to pay that much for a coating mix that probably costs them less than a nickel to produce.
We also had sugar and butter corn, the first I have found this year and my favorite.
