Chocolate Rum-Soaked Cherries

Late March. The newsletter has been live for three weeks and the subscriber count is two thousand. Two thousand people. The number grew from two hundred to two thousand in three months, the growth not planned but organic, the shiso growth, the growth that happens when you put something real into the soil and water it with honesty and the honesty reaches the light and the light feeds the growth.

I made hanami onigiri for the cherry blossom season — the annual rice balls with sakura petals, the annual walk under the trees with Miya, the annual mouth-open-to-petals gesture that is now twelve years old and has been photographed twelve times and will be photographed twelve more times and each time the photo will show the same tree and the same girl and the different girl, the taller girl, the older girl, the girl who is growing like shiso, persistent, fragrant, reaching for the light.

The Dashi newsletter has found its voice — and the voice is different from the blog, the way I am different at three AM than I am at noon. The blog is the noon voice: polished, structured, the sentences revised. The Dashi is the three-AM voice: raw, rambling, the sentences arriving in the order they arrive, the order not imposed but discovered, the way dashi's flavor is not imposed but discovered, emerging from the kombu in its own time, in its own way.

The second book is in final proofs. Two Kitchens will be published in September. The book and the newsletter are two versions of the same practice: the book is the finished meal, plated and served. The newsletter is the kitchen while the meal is being made, the mess and the process and the burnt pot handle and the moment when the miso dissolves and the soup becomes itself. Both versions are true. Both versions are me. The both-ness is, as always, the condition.

After the walk with Miya — the petals in our mouths, the photo taken, the annual ritual completed — I came home and found myself standing at the counter with a bowl of fresh cherries and the kind of quiet that follows a day that felt too full to hold. The onigiri had been made and eaten under the trees. What I needed now was something for after: something dark and slow and a little bit reckless, the way three AM is reckless, the way the Dashi newsletter is reckless, the way you let cherries sit in rum until they become something neither cherry nor rum but entirely themselves. These Chocolate Rum-Soaked Cherries became the kitchen version of the newsletter — unpolished, patient, and truer for it.

Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 10 min | Total Time: 25 min + 24 hr soaking | Servings: 8

Ingredients

1 lb fresh or thawed frozen dark sweet cherries, pitted
1/2 cup dark rum
1/4 cup granulated sugar
2 tablespoons water
6 oz bittersweet chocolate (70% cacao), finely chopped
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Pinch of flaky sea salt

Instructions

Make the rum syrup. Combine sugar and water in a small saucepan over medium heat, stirring until sugar dissolves, about 2 minutes. Remove from heat, stir in rum, and let cool to room temperature.
Soak the cherries. Place pitted cherries in a clean glass jar or bowl. Pour the rum syrup over the cherries, making sure they are fully submerged. Cover and refrigerate for at least 24 hours, or up to 3 days for deeper flavor.
Melt the chocolate. When ready to serve, melt the chopped chocolate and butter together in a heatproof bowl set over a saucepan of barely simmering water, stirring gently until smooth. Remove from heat and stir in vanilla extract.
Drain and coat. Lift the cherries from the syrup with a slotted spoon, reserving the syrup. Pat cherries very lightly with a paper towel — they should still be moist but not dripping. Drizzle the warm chocolate over the cherries or fold them gently into the chocolate to coat.
Finish and serve. Arrange cherries on a parchment-lined plate or shallow bowl. Finish with a pinch of flaky sea salt. Serve immediately as a warm dessert, or refrigerate until the chocolate sets, about 20 minutes. Drizzle reserved rum syrup over the top before serving.

Nutrition (per serving)

Chocolate Rum-Soaked Cherries — When the Blossoms Fall Into the Bowl