(This painting is by the artist Julia Swartz and I think it's simply delicious)
It's not quite summer yet but certain signs are starting to crop up indicating the season is just around the corner. Besides the obvious appearances of Mister Softee Trucks (welcome back, boys) and a street fair that made crossing 3rd Avenue impossible last weekend (hello, funnel cake and sausage hell), other indicators are slowly creeping back into the peripheral of everyday life. I like the subtle transition; it's like an urban tableau of an advent calendar.
There is one trapping of the season that always says summer to me: Fruit. Growing up in California's Central Valley, we were blessed with incredible bounties of succulent fruity goodness year round. The summer was always a special time yielding a bumper crop of intoxicating largess. Walking into the produce department of our local FoodLand can only be likened to the scene from "The Wizard of Oz" when Dorothy exits her contorted house into a technicolor world of little people. Summer fruit was our version of Skittles..a visual landscape of vibrant shiny hues. Dazzling.
The seductive bouquet of a ripe peach is the perfect summer metaphor for me. It is flamboyant in dress and brash in scent, unashamed to fall from the pit in languid compliance. It entices you with the simplest of come ons. It's sloppy yet luxuriously elegant. Indulgent. Mysterious. Even a little raw with its dark, ridged pit and sinewy membranes. The flavor speaks to the multiple notes of a summer day: the dewy fresh air of a morning, the sticky lazy heat of midday, the cool aftertaste of dusk. Peaches should be savored whole and without the adornment of cream or pie crust or sugar or anything else to sully their stand-alone decadence. They're soft to the touch and sweet to to the taste and utterly satisfying in every respect.
Summer is a time we should fling away the accouterments of tedious detail and embrace simple living and hedonistic indulgences. So aren't peaches the perfect metaphor?
5 comments:
I've been eating juicy peaches all week....how cool to have this blog entry to go along with it.
I love the way they make a bunch of noise when you eat one and how they drip all down your arm...then you get to suck the seed.
Now that's some good eatin!
Does anybody remember that song "Peaches" by The Presidents of the United States of America"? I haven't heard that song in ages.
I gotta get me a peach.
Allman Brothers, baby.
And don't be dissin' peach cobbler, my friend. I'd hate to have to punch you.
xoxoxo
used to have a mango tree in my front yard in Hawaii undah which I'd sit and eat scads and scads of the succulent fruit from heaven while the juices dripped all down my young and equally succulent body....your description of peaches brought me right back thea, Chicken....thanks
Dear Wise Jules--"Eat A Peach" is my favorite Allman Bros album. I knew you'd get the reference.
Miss Womp: A pleasure to have your gracious presence here. Hope you are mending quickly. xox
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