A long line at the Murray Family Farms' stand at the market means cherry season has arrived even if summer sunshine has not. Chef Michael Leonard of Beethoven Market in Mar Vista uses the prized crop in a pork shoulder dish. Sourcing his pork from Peads & Barnett, he cooks it to medium on the plancha. He also braises conehead cabbage from Weiser Family Farms with guanciale, thyme, and a bit of red onion. It accompanies the pork, which is drizzled with a cherry sauce made of shallots, red wine, red wine vinegar, and lemon. As the summer progresses, Leonard will pivot to use peaches with the pork dish.
Located near Bakersfield, Murray Family Farms has become famous for having the very first cherry harvest in North America with many of those cherries ending up in Asia. Steven Murray is a sixth generation California farmer carrying on his family's legacy. The farm developed several innovations in order to harvest fruit early.
With this year's crop collapse, the farm has some of the state's only exportable cherries, Murray explains. He attributes this good fortune to an overhead watering system of misters and trellises. The Kym Green Bush (KGB) pruning method also helps with a successful harvest.
"Our goal is to have at least 30 scaffolds or branches, so it basically looks like a giant octopus, and all of the branches go straight up and down," Murray says. "By having 30 of them at a vigorous rootstock, we're able to have it where all of the branches stay soft. One person can take their one arm and lift any branch down, so they can pick all the fruit on the tree without any ladders. It's a huge savings but it also solves one of the other big problems that cherries have in the southlands, and it's sunburn."
The farm works with three different breeders and has been growing the Brooks cherry variety since 1989. Next week the Anabelle variety, named after Murray's grandmother, will be available. Expect cherries for the next two weeks before the arrival of berries and later in the summer, grapes.