Grilled Pork Chops With Cherry Salsa

Cherries are the first fruit to arrive in the summer here in Northern California, and when the trees are laden with them, you have to pick and eat as many as you can, before the worms and birds get to the rest.

Friends with cherry trees are good friends indeed, especially when they arrive with baskets filled to the brim!

Mostly this is an opportunity to gorge, and engage in pit spitting contests. (I'm still mad that they've cross-bred the seeds out of watermelons, depriving me and thousands of kids of the summer rite of seed spitting, but am happy to engage with cherry pits.)

But if you want get all grown up on us, you can do other things with fresh cherries—clafouti, cherry fro yo, and sweet cherry pie—or make a simple cherry salsa to accompany pork chops or pork tenderloin.

Now a note about salsa. Just because many of us are used to salsa served with tacos doesn't mean that salsas are inherently spicy. Salsa is just the Spanish word for sauce.

In Mexico that usually means the addition of a spicy element such as dried red chiles or chopped fresh jalapeños. Salsa can also be Spanish or Italian inspired, without chiles, which is what we've chosen to do here.

I actually tried without success to make a spicy cherry salsa; any chile heat ended up detracting from the sweet flavor of the cherries. We finally settled on this simple version with red onions, a little lemon juice, and some balsamic and a touch of sugar to intensify the flavor of the cherries. Lovely served with grilled pork chops.

Any other ideas out there for savory spins on fresh cherries? Please let us know in the comments.