The Perfect Peach

If you prefer your fruit cold or canned, I can’t help you, and there’s nothing for you to see here, so click or scroll away to something more satisfying. But before you go, in the name of the goddess Pomona and all that is botanically holy, take those bananas out of the refrigerator—and the tomatoes, for crying out loud, if you’ve stashed them there. No tomatoes in the fridge. Ever.

Where was I?

Peaches. I have a peach tree. I didn’t plant it. It was here when I moved in. How lucky am I? And I dare say, on far more than one occasion, I have been blessed to find the perfect peach.

When I’m picking, I search only for ripeness. If the fruit, ever so gently impressed by my thumb, gives way, the globe is plucked.

During a brief shower for each peach individually (just to rinse the dust off—no chemical sprays to be concerned with here), if a single peach (or perhaps two…probably three) is discovered that may fit all my criteria, it is placed to the side to be consumed immediately, while it is still fully infused with the sweet warmth of the sun, its color alone a reflection of the sunrise in its perfect balance of rose and gold hues.

A sharp knife will glide through such a peach, the two halves falling away from each other as if relieved at their release. A slight tug, and the skin, thin as a gossamer veil, will lift away, leaving the pale flesh exposed and inviting.

To have such a peace in hand, to bite into a season’s worth of good health and joy and pleasure, unencumbered by bowl or utensil, the nectar sliding through one's fingers, is a sublime experience indeed.