The Summer Peach

Go to your local farmer's market, and you will find the summer peach at it's tastiest this time of year....

Of course! The summer peach! It is what eating seasonally is all about.

But first some blueberry pancakes....

This morning I heated up some blueberry pancakes. I had made them for Dan, about a month ago or so, to entice him to eat something. One of the most heartbreaking things about end stage cancer is when your loved one no longer has any appetite for food, and barely drinks anything as well. I made these pancakes, and he did eat one, or at least part of one on the morning I had made them.  He sat at the blue table in the back yard and read the paper while eating.  He always liked to have his maple syrup, a lot of maple syrup, heated up, before pouring it onto his pancakes. I froze most of what I had made, knowing he would never be able to eat them, and knowing he did not like to eat the same food, day after day.

After meditating in the garden upon waking this morning, today I defrosted two of the blueberry pancakes I originally made for Dan, added my maple syrup cold, and started to look at the newspaper. Dan and I were very much alike in a lot of ways, and sometimes it felt like we were as different as night and day. I always felt that he kept me grounded. I was always more prone to floating in the air, and he was my anchor and pulled me back to earth. He was my ballast.

And then it was on two breakfast #2, featuring The Perfectly Ripe Peach.

I had a beautifully ripened peach in my refrigerator. When I buy fruit, I like to leave it out in a fruit bowl, because fruit at room temperature tastes natural, and lets all of the flavors out. Last night this peach was on the verge of turning overly ripe, especially with the air conditioner shut off at night, which would hasten ripening. So I placed it in the refrigerator.

After consuming the blueberry pancakes, like Pooh bear, I still had a hankering for a little smackerel of something more. And so the peach came to mind. It occurred to me then, so why the fruit cup?

I grew up treasuring the fruit cup, which had little diced pieces of fruit in it, such as peaches and pears, and then the ever prized tiny bits of marichino cherry, only one or two bits in your cup. I am sure my mother never bought these things because they were so obviously unhealthy, loaded in sugar as they were. But on special occasions, lo and behold, there would be the fruit cup, and we would gobble it down, sugar laden syrup and all. The cute little diced pieces must have been part of the attraction, so neatly minced, and all pieces exactly the same size, and in that cute little plastic cup.  So fitting a child's hand.

The fruit cup does not hold a candle to a real peach, especially a seasonal peach. And so I made my own dice today, all different sizes, and with the skin on, added a big dollop of low-fat yogurt, and enjoyed breakfast #2, or part two, depending upon how you look at it, laughing about the absurdity of the 1950's and 1960's fruit cup, as I ate.

In the garden today....

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How a person who floats in the air lives....

I often feel that I like to amble through life.  Dan was always more focused and direct.

"The Long Way Home" by Tom Waits, sung by Norah Jones

Well I stumbled in the darkness
I'm lost and alone
Though I said I'd go before us
And show the way back home
IS there a light up ahead
I can't hold onto very long
Forgive me pretty baby but I always take the long way home

Money's just something you throw
Off the back of a train
Got a handful of lightening
A hat full of rain
And I know that I said
I'd never do it again
And I love you pretty baby but I always take the long way home

I put food on the table
And roof overhead
But I'd trade it all tomorrow
For The highway instead
Watch your back if I should tell you
Loves the only thing I've ever known
One thing for sure pretty baby I always take the long way home

You know I love you baby
More than the whole wide world
I'm your woman
You know you are my pearl
Let's go out past the party lights
We can finally be alone
Come with me and we can take the long way home
Come with me, together we can take the long way home
Come with me, together we can take the long way home