Konrad: 1. The original plunger type cherry stoner is a German design, made by the Glass Company of Germany, of tough, orange-colored plastic. We have two of them, and have been using them for over 20 years. As they say in Germany, they are "Automatischer Kirschentkerner, fur frische Kirschen, konservierte und tiefgefrorene Kirschen". I don't have the two little dots for the "fur". The Italians make multiple-cherry machines that are quite expensive, but the Glass design is the best pitter for the money on the market today. 2. A little more than 15 years ago, knockoffs began to appear from Taiwan, and now they are more likely from mainland China like nearly everything else. The Taiwanese and the Chinese are very good at copying things, and I assume their pitters, which are dead ringers for the Glass design, (although they are usually white instead of orange plastic), are pretty good too, although when I can get a good German product at not too much of a premium price, I usually buy it. I feel the same way about Felco pruners, built like a Swiss watch. 3. I know you are a skilled craftsman, and have a lot of experience working with machinery, but I think you might give your plunger-type pitter another chance. We usually pit and freeze over 25 quarts of sour cherries every spring, and there are a few things we have learned about using these pitters. First, do not overload the little hopper with cherries and expect them to roll singly into the pitting chamber. They will not. Place a maximum of 8-10 cherries in the hopper, and guide them to the guillotine. This slows the operation a little, but not much. The cherries are always trying to hop over one another to get to the bowl without being pitted, and when you get a cherry jam in the pitting chamber this is what can happen. Adjust your pressure on the plunger so it is just enough to pit the cherry; not too much or too little. Keep the knob on the plunger screwed tight so you do not lose spring tension. Do not allow the pit bin to become overfilled, and rinse the entire pitter every so often when it becomes sticky. Be alert for black frass in the pitting area which indicates the presence of cherry fruit fly larvae, and stop operations when you see it for a complete rinse. Made sure the rubber insert that grabs the pit is always in the right place, kept there by the pit bin. 4. My mother-in-law used the little hand-held pitter, so I have seen those used, and they are many times slower than the plunger types, though effective. I have also seen the crank-type pitters in action, and, in addition to crushing the cherries, they pass many more pits than a plunger type carefully used. However, plunger-type pitters are designed for use on full-size cherries, such as Montmorency or Northstar, (or any of the sweet cherries), with a stone that is small relative to the size of the cherry. I saw your beautiful photos of Nanking cherries not long ago, but these thin-walled bush cherries with large stones will not work well in any pitter, except possibly the hand-held types, if that is what you are trying to pit. 5. If I have any problem with the pitter you purchased, it is the suction-cup base, which is not an improvement over the clamp base and would quickly loosen and have to be reset frequently. A clamp-type base will hold to the table much better, and I modify mine by placing a 3/4 piece of wood beneath to raise the discharge point and permit use of a more spacious receiving bowl. I checked out the Lehman's website provided by Woody, and see that they have a deluxe model, actually made in Germany, for $32.95. I am sure their cheaper model is Chinese. The German machine would be my choice, hands down. A little pricey, but a stainless steel plunger is worth a lot. I know it is not so simple for you to order merchandise from USA sources, given exchange difficulties etc., but if you have a lot of cherries to pit, the best is none too good. Finally, give your Chinese machine another chance (though not with bush type cherries), and you might begin to like it if you can figure out how to get rid of that suction cup and install a clamp. Don Yellman, Great Falls, VA

Greetings: Usually when I pit my cherries, I wash them after pitting and then chill in the refrigerator over night and pit them the next day. Cold cherries are not as juicy and pit easier. This year being a poor year for all 3 of my cherries as far as yield (Mesabi, North Star and Surecrop), we picked a bunch of Montmorency the first week in August in Door County of Wisconsin which is a prime tart cherry growing area in the U.S. We were on vacation there and happy to be there during the cherry season. I noticed the growers there commercially harvest with the shaking machines and then have the fruit dump into ice water to chill them before pitting. When we got home from vacation with the cherries, I put mine in the sink with ice water then pitted. It worked really well! A little cold on my fingers picking up the cherries but it was a good tip since I did not have room in the refrigerator to chill them all overnight like I usually do before pitting. My modern plunger type pitter works great but the orange plastic tab that prevents the cherry from falling thru the hole for the pits is wearing out. Can't seem to find a replacement for it. Hate to buy a new pitter because of a worn out piece of plastic. There must be a way to make something that would fit.

Honestly, a Cornelian cherry pie is the best cherry pie in the world. With vanilla ice cream, it's out of this world. I think of this fruit as the rhubarb of the "cherry" world. The taste is quite distinct and definitely not cranberry. Once you add sugar, the fruit is transformed. To make pie filling, I add sugar, red wine, a bit of lemon juice, touch of salt, ground black pepper, and some ground cloves. I use a bit of flour for thickener. People are skeptical when I extol the virtues of this pie, but once they've tried it, they're believers. Cornus mas is a huge seller in the Caucasus and Turkey, where it's routinely turned into jam (pits left in the fruit) and used to sweeten tea, especially when you have a cold or flu. It's a pain to pit it; a cherry pitter really doesn't do the job. I was in Tbilisi when I discovered the cherries years ago and pitted them while I watched the Clinton impeachment proceedings on television. I used a paperclip (and still do) to preserve as much of the whole, soft, very ripe fruit as I could. A friend in the Caucasus gently rolls the cherries over a grater to get the fruit off (she don't make pies with it; mine was the first she tried). Occasionally, for pie, I have a "pitting party": invite seven friends over, and in one hour, you will have the amount of pitted cherries it would have taken you eight hours to pit by yourself. As a reward, all pitters get a piece of pie. I boil the leftover pits to remove the clinging bits of fruit, which results in a strong Cornelian cherry juice that I turn into sorbet, using the same ingredients (sans flour) I use for the pie filling. A friend from New York told me I could make a fortune selling the sorbet there. (Sure, if someone invents a pitter.) The fruit also makes a wonderful sauce--delicious on chicken or ice cream or on anything else you would flavor with cherry. This cherry would make an excellent liqueur, I think.

Thank you Linda Lou, I knew minced was small, diced was cubes but didn't know size (I think I've seen "1/4" dice" but wouldn't know if that was on the large or the small side), and "roughly chopped" would be really big, but I don't know what "chopped" meant. I will cut onions and peppers to app. 1/4", Annie said she quarters tomatoes to make it chunkier so still want to know her consistency. Lisa, yes I do know 16 oz = 1 C fluid. I just assumed that paste should not exceed sauce, and it's easier to pour 4 oz out of a sauce can (to get 12 oz of sauce to equal the paste) than to spoon paste out (unless I measure it in Tbsp, then thoroughly scrape the spoon out). I'm not even sure how much I scraped out of the 12 oz can. But that brings up something I never thought of - the 12oz can is sold by weight, not volume, and I assume the recipe is referring to volume? So who knows how much I *really* got out of the 12 oz weight can? Of course, I could measure it next time, but if 12 (or 16) oz volume comes out to weigh more b/c paste is so dense, then I assume that wouldn't be safe either, the salsa would be too thick. Now I'm *really* confused. I did find on the Canadian Fight Bac website "cooked type (salsa) and not processed, it can be refrigerated for one month." - now, I did process these, opened 2 jars (1 hot, 1 medium) yesterday to taste and will use today at a BBQ. If I open the others and stir to oxygenate, will they last 2 weeks to a month? Or should I freeze them? http://www.canfightbac.org/cpcfse/en/cookwell/ask/where_how/#1684