wunnerful time of the year

Just had to comment on a lunchtime snack today.Wish it had been those great georgia peaches, but our Washington variety aint so bad. Diced fresh peaches sprinkled with vanilla sugar and marinated overnight with a bit of Gran Marnier,then piled on a warm scone and topped with (store bought) sour cream and decorated with a dusting of cinnamon sugar.Sure miss the thick cream from on top of the un-homogenized milk like when I was a kid.

Making me drool all over the keyboard, LOL!

I love scones, but the thought of then with your Gran Marnier peaches is SO tempting!

Ohhhhhh, yum. I still remember how good those peachers were you brought to the Crossville Roundup in 2002, Darius! All the peaches at our stores are either hard (but sweet), or mealy and gross. We've not found one really good peach and I want one so badly.

Gee - you guys! Now I'm drooling....

Thanks, GW... those were pretty decent peaches, weren't they? I'm lucky to live close to SC where they grow good peaches, and actually MORE than Georgia, "The Peach State" does. Too bad peaches will be gone before the KYRU.

I avoid store-bought peaches, nectarines, etc. They are usually mushy and tasteless.

GW, this is partly for you:

"All of us have a story, and maybe the best way to describe my story is to begin to tell a little bit about a peach I grow. Suncrest is one of the last remaining truly juicy peaches. When you wash that treasure under a stream of cooling water, your fingertips distinctively search for that gushy side of the fruit, your mouth waters in anticipation, you lean over the sink to make sure you don’t drip on yourself. Then the juice trickles down your cheeks and dangles on your chin. This is a real bite, a primal act, a magical sensory celebration announcing summer has arrived.

That peach only makes sense if you know what great peaches taste like. My biggest fear is that there is a generation growing up who have never tasted that sort of produce, and if they haven’t tasted it, how will they know if they’re missing something wonderful? I claim that it's all about a sense of memory, a memory all of … know and understand…. You understand that sense of difference.

The question then is, of course, what is that greater memory that people share with food—and is there a generation that’s going to grow up that has no such memory? I claim that memories are often wound around stories.

...

I want to share with you my perfect peach memory, and I think you’ll find that eating is a social act as well as a political act. It involves others, usually—often family and friends. For me, the perfect peach was with my grandmother, and let me close with this. My grandmother taught me how to eat a peach. She’d sit on a small wooden stool, slice peaches, and occasionally she’d stop like an innocent child and steal the taste from the golden flesh and quickly sneak a piece into her mouth. I watched her close her eyes and they seemed to tremble, the muscles of an eighty-year-old involuntarily twitchy and danciness that’s lost in a dream. Bauchon’s savored flavor, a satisfying glow gently spread across her face. Not a smile or even a grin, just the look of comfort, relaxed, soothing in content. I thought of that image even after she died, wanting to believe that would be the look on her face forever. Bauchon grandmother and I shared that perfect moment, and I’ve spent years trying to re-enact that scene, closing my eyes, smacking my lips. I smile and gradually too lose myself in a flavor of a perfect peach memory."

Excerpts from a talk by David ‘Mas’ Masumoto (peach grower) from:
http://www.newfarm.org/features/0804/masumoto/index.shtml

Great story Darius, thank you.

Wow. I'm just catching up on my watched threads (they sure do accumulate!). Darius, if this excerpt doesn't elicit a nod and a knowing smile from a peach lover, nothing will.

I believe my perfect peach memory is neatly parcelled up in a reflection crate labeled "Crossville Roundup 2002". :)

Thanks.

Them was some mighty FINE peaches, Darius!!

"eyes"

Thanks, y'all. :)

I actually had some this year that were better, IMO. Don't know what kind I brought to Crossville RU, but this year I had some very delicious Red Havens (yellow fleshed peach) and a few White Lady's (white fleshed). The kinds you have to eat over the sink, LOL.