What a treat to go out to the frontyard and pick the fixings for dessert. For the past dozens of years I've reaped the leftovers from the cherries that the birds feasted on as their main meal. And it's been the pits!

It's all about timing. If I wait til the cherries are at the peak of ripeness and if I miss a day of checking, that's always when the birds have their banquet. This year I was vigilant, and I am savoring my victory with a Chocolate Cherry Clafouti.

My goal was to make a simple cherry cobbler. But when I started poring through my cookbooks for a recipe with all the ingredients that I had on hand, I discovered the clafouti.

The name scared me at first since I wasn't in the mood for a complicated dish. Not to worry. The hardest part was pitting the cherries. (Reminder to self: Buy one of those olive/cherry pitters that veteran cherry-cookers say are indispensible.) Otherwise, it's absolutely simple to make.

The recipe is from the Moosewood Restaurant Book of Desserts from the Moosewood Collective (1997, Clarkson/Potter, soft cover).

Here's the note preceding the recipe: "According to Julia Child, clafouti originated in eastern France near Limoges. It is a soft, puffy, crepe-like omelet -- almost like a pancake, almost like a pudding -- and the silky custard is almost always combined with fruit. Clafouti looks best and has the finest texture when served within hours after baking, but still tastes good the next day."

It can be made with all sorts of fruit, and may be served with a dusting of confectioners' sugar or with a dollop of whipped cream.

Chocolate Cherry Clafouti
3 cups pitted sweet cherries, fresh, frozen or canned in water
1/2 cup chocolate chips
Batter
4 eggs
1 cup milk
3/4 cup unbleached white flour
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract or 1/2 teaspoon almond extract
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 tablespoon butter

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Lightly butter the baking pan (10-inch pie pan or a 9-inch square baking pan). Arrange the cherries and chocolate chips in the bottom of the baking dish. In a blender, combine the ingredients for the batter and whirl until smooth. Pour the batter over the cherries and bake for 55 to 65 minutes, until the clafouti is puffed and golden and a knife inserted in the center comes out clean.

Cool for at least 15 minutes before serving warm or at room temperature. Makes 6 to 8 servings.

OK. I know it's late in the season to discover rhubarb, but I cooked with it for the first time last night, and I know it won't be my last.

I wasn't energetic or enterprising enough to try to figure out how Kathy Davis of Beaver Crossing makes her fabulous rhubarb cake (try it one Sunday at the Old Cheney Farmers Market and you'll come back weekly for more!) so I opted for a simple sauce.

The rhubarb came courtesy of a colleague who deposited a bagful on the office food table. With no takers after a week, I swooped up the lot. And then it sat in my fridge for at least two weeks, so it wasn't the freshest. I figured a sauce would be the most forgiving use for the lingering stalks.

I wasn't sure whether I was supposed to scrape the stringy outer layers with a vegetable peeler as you do with celery, so I did a gentle once-over, leaving most of the red outer layer intact. Then I cut the stalks into 1- and 2-inch chunks (about 4 to 5 cups in all), placed them in a heavy saucepan and added 3/4 cup sugar, 1/4 cup water and a few shakes of cinnamon. I covered the pot and let it simmer til the rhubarb melted down. No need to wait for the sauce to cool -- I immediately drizzled a healthy portion over some fresh strawberries. A grand dessert, indeed! Next time I'll have some rich vanilla ice cream to go with the sauce, a company dessert for sure!

Other ideas for rhubarb?

My new measure of summer's arrival comes with making the first batch of pesto from the basil growing in a big pot on my back patio. This year I even beat the summer solstice!

In my book home-made pesto doesn't even need a real meal to accompany it. Since the hour was late I simply used it as a dip for chunks of leftover roast chicken and farmers market snow peas. Yum! Next comes pasta with pesto sauce and then I plan to get a bit more creative.

I whirr the basil leaves, garlic, olive oil, pinenuts, kosher salt and parmesan cheese in my 40-year-old, heavy- duty Osterizer (do they even make these any more?) When I put the mixer away last year I inadvertently stuck the rubber ring on the wrong side of the piece that attaches to the motor unit. Just as the pesto was coming together, all of a sudden the mixer was oozing an oily black goo, which luckily remained on the outside and never contaminated the pesto inside the glass mixer. But it was a close call.

Although the Osterizer keeps on like an old workhorse -- it has about a dozen buttons that allow me to mix, blend, chop, liquefy and even frappe, among others --I think I'm in the market for something lighter and perhaps more efficient. Can anyone recommend a favorite mixer/blender that would be great for making pesto?

Two topics here:

First, I have it on esteemed authority that the peaches at Super Target are amazing right now. Fragrant from several feet away, I hear. "Holy crap," wrote "not usually a big peach connoisseur."

More Super Target adulation, I know. I think it's time to move on to salivating over Whole Foods now, but that could take days. That deli calls my name. Oh luscious Humboldt Fog. My paycheck hates you.

Anyhow, if I weren't leaving for Colorado tomorrow, I'd whip up some of Martha Stewart's peach ice cream. It has a very strong peach flavor. Martha uses it to make gingersnap ice cream sandwiches, according to her Desserts cookbook, a many splendored thing.

On to Top Chef!

Did you think this season's chefs seemed immature? And overly prone to simple mistakes?

Maybe I'm bitter because I adored Antonia. She's the only one I've really hated to see go so far.

I also wonder if Dale fell victim to being just a little too much like last year's winner, Hung, for the producers' liking.

But here's what's really eating at me. Check out this article about Chef Lisa in today's New York Daily News.

"I don't want to know what people who can't even afford to eat in my restaurant, let alone know how to cook have to say about me"

*I think she's angling for a Viewers Favorite award, don't you?*

Much to my chagrin, I would like to try her peanut butter mashed potato recipe, though.

Go Richard, Go!

Right?

Like something from Willy Wonka's garden:

It's a miracle fruit, something I've never heard of until I read about it in this fabulous New York Times article today.

Thanks to a natural chemical known as miraculin, the little berry makes everything you eat taste sweet for about an hour. Beer tastes like chocolate. Tabasco like hot doughnut glaze.

I am seriously considering trying this. Actually, I'm dying to try it. I am also too cheap to give up $90 for 30 berries.

Any takers?

I'm picturing a party with soy souce, A-1, broccoli, brie...

I feel like I'm advertising a keg party for your mouth.

Maybe I should just grow my own?