Juicy fruits: 17 ways to cook with cherries – from sorbet to vodka to black forest gateau

Paired with chocolate for dessert or pickled and served over mackerel, there's so much you can do with cherries this season - just invest in a stoner first

As cherry season gets into full swing, allow me to recommend a small, but judicious, purchase - buy yourself a cherry stoner.

You may already have one in a drawer somewhere - a tool you've inherited without ever knowing what it is: little sprung jaws featuring a spoon with a hole in it on one side and a corresponding protrusion on the other. You can pick one up for as little as three quid, and it does olives as well.