Peachy

So it's been a minute since my last post, and I was totally prepared to tell you about my raspberry scone experiment, and the fried summer squash I made last week -- but then I went to Kentucky. There are about a million possible quips to follow that statement, so I'll let you insert your favorite Kentucky joke here. For me, suffice it to say that I was accompanying my parents to Louisville to spend some quality time with extended family. On our last day in Louisville, we visited the Joe Huber Farms, where rows of tomatoes, apple trees, and peach trees were planted so that visitors could "play farm" for a day and harvest their own produce.


There was also an indoor farmer's market on site, where other farm-fresh produce was sold, including garlic, onion, potato, and squash. I came back with tomatoes, red and green, as well as some apples and peaches. Today, I devoured two of the peaches from that farm -- one after lunch and one following dinner -- and they were sublime. When I bit into the fruit, juices ran. I tasted the scarlet and crimson and fiery orange colors of its just ripened innards -- I was overcome by tartness and sweetness and the deeply lush summertime experience of PEACH.

The last time I tried to eat one of these things, it was picked up from one grocery store or another here in the fair city of Chicago. I remember cutting into the hard, tasteless flesh before deciding to let the fruit ripen in a bowl on the counter top for another day or two -- only to return the next day to a bowl full of peaches infected with white mold.

If you'll indulge me for a moment, it is at these instances that I'm reminded of the eloquence of nature. In an age where foods are manufactured in laboratories, there is something utterly perfect and sacrosanct about picking a fruit from a branch, the way our ancestors did before us, and their's before them, all the way down through the ages, and savoring its original taste. The peach incident is a hearty reminder that food doesn't always have to be about cooking, nor does nourishment need to be complicated -- sometimes it can be the simple and sensory act of biting into a perfectly ripened summertime fruit.

And after all that, for those who are still interested in raspberry scones and squash fritters, well, here you go:

Smitten Scones

Summer Squash Fry