Russian Monday: Sour Cherry Vareniky

This recipe comes to me from childhood. My family lived in St. Petersburg which used to be called “Leningrad” at the time and every summer I used to visit my grandma’s in the village far out of town. She had log house with nice garden and lots of fruit trees. One among them was a cherry tree bearing a lot of small sour cherries. What’s interesting about my grandma’s house is that kitchen was completely separate in the small log cabin in the middle of the fruit garden. I vividly remember my grandma making berry and apricot jams, pressing apple juice and molding her cherry “vareniky” (pronounced as “va-re-ne-key”, i.e. dumplings). She has never been taking cherrystones out so dumplings were usually large and plump. I remember myself sitting on the kitchen windowsill and watching my grandma’s fast hands working the dough. I loved to spit those cherrystones out and never had a chance for it when my mom used to make vareniky with cottage cheese because cherries were not always easy to get in the city.