Travel Blog

17 Jul

Love Cherry Season? Pit For Your Supper at The Irish Heather

Photo credit: Flickr user jayneandd

B.C. cherry season is in full force and there are so many sweet ways to taste the bounty. One of the best offers I’ve heard about is the just-announced Pit For Your Supper at the Irish Heather in Gastown. The weekly event is as juicy as it sounds. It involves 2,000 pounds of cherries, a 40 foot table and 50 volunteers. Here are the details so you can decide whether or not to roll up your sleeves and pitch in.

How it works: Instead of paying for your dinner at the Irish Heather in Gastown, Heather Hospitality Group (HHG) is offering guests dinner plus beer if they spend two hours pitting the bumper crop of cherries from HHG’s Picker Shack Orchard in Naramata.

Pit For Your Supper starts Wednesday, July 18 and continues weekly all the way through September. After cherry season, dinner guests will work their way through seasonal B.C. fruits apricots, peaches, apples and pears.

The results of dinner guests’ labour will appear on the seasonal menus at Irish Heather’s Long Table Series.

More on the Pit For Your Supper menu and how to get involved after the jump.

Picker Shack Orchard, Naramata. Photo credit: Picker Shack

The Irish Heather’s long table is where you’ll be earning your supper, should you volunteer as a pitter. As you probably know from coverage of Vancouver’s lively communal dining scene, long tables are a great place to make friends and share recipes with other ardent foodies.

Pitting commences at 7pm and supper is served at 9pm. After the cherry carnage, volunteers will feast on spiced pork loin served with potato salad and fresh cut slaw; or the vegetarian option of fried green onion polenta, white bean and garlic puree, topped with a zucchini salad. Both are paired with Victoria-brewed Driftwood Fat Tug IPA. Volunteers get to take home a bag of Naramata cherries.

Everyone loves cherry pie, but the culinary team at Irish Heather has even bigger plans for the fruit. Expect to see cherries appear on cheese and charcuterie plates, in cherry chutney to accompany house made terrines, and in an exclusive beer made for Bitter by RB Brewing Co. As part of the RB exclusive draft beer series, stay tuned for the release of either the Cherry Wheat Ale or an Apple Brown Ale available only at Bitter Tasting Room.

Find the full Pit For Your Supper Schedule here. To volunteer, e-mail reso@irishheather.com.  Pit For Your Supper starts July 18 and continues through September.

Article source: http://www.insidevancouver.ca/2012/07/17/love-cherry-season-pit-for-your-supper-at-the-irish-heather/