We have been enjoying a lot of peaches this week. Golden mounds of them seem to tumble toward me at the grocery store, and I offer little resistance to their allure. I bag them, and haul them home, and start devising the many ways to eat a peach.
Mr. Friday sliced half a peach onto his bowl of cold cereal this morning, leaving the other half for me on the cutting board. I ate it over the sink, because the juices dripped furiously and there wasn’t anyone around who would point out that I should have been more ladylike and at least used a napkin. I understand through my many hours spent reading about Britain’s royal family that not even the royal children are allowed to use their fingers to eat fruit – they are supposed to use a knife and fork! Shockingly uber-civilized, I say. Summer is the time of melting ice cream and oozing marshmallows and juicy watermelon and dripping peaches. How can you appreciate a peach unless you are feeling the velvet skin with your grubby fingers? If you haven’t had peach juice run down the front of your T-shirt, you have not had a satisfactory summer experience.
You can start off the day slicing peaches onto your cereal or into your granola or into your oatmeal. How about making a healthy peach smoothie? The New York Times suggests this recipe: https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1013778-peach-vanilla-smoothie Don’t neglect an opportunity to just seize the day and the peach early, and eat it in your crude plebeian fashion over the kitchen sink.
For lunch, The New York Times also suggests an interesting fruit salad, which will delight and amaze your co-workers: https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1017527-sweet-and-spicy-fruit-salad?smid=fb-nytdining&smtyp=cur Easily packed into a re-useable container, you can consume your tasty anti-oxidants and consume delish and healthy fiber while feeling smug and virtuous.
By the time cocktail hour rolls around you might feel a certain longing for the decadent, though. I haven’t been to Harry’s Bar in Venice (although it is on The List) but sometimes I want to experience a Charles Ryder moment. Harry’s Bar has brought us the Bellini, the dry Martini, and Carpaggio. I think a Bellini or two will do this evening. It is Friday, after all. https://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/martini-recipes/bellini/#1iudPolf4xGeUKMo.97bellini
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2001/nov/11/foodanddrink.restaurants
Of course, it is customary to think of peaches for dessert. We had a simple peachy dessert this weekend – sliced local peaches over a large scoop of decadent vanilla ice cream. We splurged and went beyond Breyer’s (which is always easy to find and is very, very tasty) and had Graeter’s Handcrafted French Pot® Madagascar Bourbon Vanilla Beach ice cream. Holy smokes! It was amazing! I am having a taste of the leftover ice cream right now. Truly socks-knocked-off flavor.
I have never been a big fan of cooked peaches – maybe I was scarred for life because of all the canned cling peaches I consumed in my youth. Remember that sticky syrup? Peaches were transformed into something only a cafeteria lady could love. But now, we live in an age of enlightenment, where we prepare delicious food and don’t slam it into tins with gobbets of preternaturally sweetened syrups. Food52’s Amanda Hesser has a fabulous recipe for a cooked Peach Tart which I cannot recommend too highly: https://food52.com/recipes/14217-peach-tart It is a recipe to add to the repertoire of dishes that you can prepare on the fly, or when you are on vacation. If you can’t find a tart pan in the rented cabin’s kitchen, you can even substitute a cookie sheet. If you don’t have olive oil, corn oil will do. I love the good humor and the easy versatility of this recipe. And it would never occur to me to peel a peach, for heavens sake. Thank you, Amanda. Yet again.
And where would we be without Nigella and a luscious peach melba? https://www.nigella.com/recipes/view/peach-melba-134
And if you like your peaches pure and unadulterated, now is the perfect time of year for you to grab a couple of them, mosey out to the hammock, pick up the latest Kate Atkinson novel, and while away a summer’s afternoon.
“There are a whole lot of things in this world of ours you haven’t even started wondering about yet.”
― Roald Dahl, James and the Giant Peach