Early Peaches

Early-season peaches from California usually disappoint, being woody and dry despite smelling great and passing the Gentle Pressure test, but early-season CA nectarines are often succulent. This year the early white peaches are fantastic, being ripe, tender and juicy to the point of brandy-headiness. The smaller nectarines are perfect, the larger ones blah. Four white peaches and four very large, slightly bi-lobed yellow peaches are scenting the entire living room far superior to any darn candle. The yellows are huge but irregular, and their skins are nearly mahogany in some places. Their flavor is deep and tongue-tingling rich, that perfect mix of sweet and tart only the finest fruit ever achieves.

Mingling cut juicy peach with ripe raspberries, strawberries and very thick Greek yogurt, plus a generous sprinkle of Stark Sisters almond granola...that's breakfast, lunch and dinner.

The early Carolina peaches are all green at my local supermarket, so I'm avoiding them. I've been so much happier with peach buying since I learned somewhere, no idea now where, that a peach showing green around the stem will never ripen off the tree. As I am utterly baffled by otherwise nice people who claim to dislike ripe juicy peaches and prefer them apple-like in texture, I've hardly bought a bad peach since.

Early Georgia peaches, smaller the better, are a bit over-sweet and not complex but good in pie. I think I heard this year's crop will be poor from bad weather. But our local New Jersey peaches are in the Greenmarket at the same time anyway.

If time permits I'm just going to have to revisit the store tomorrow and hope there are still enough ripe yellows to make a peach pie. My favorite recipe is from Cooking Light, and it's dead simple. The combo of peach and coconut seemed too bizarre for words but it works amazingly well. Ignore the b*s about refrigerated pie pastry, use good frozen pie shell pastry from Whole Foods (or in NYC from Fresh Direct or even, in a moment of sheer extravagance, Eli's/Zabars). Also, don't bother if the peaches are so under-ripe the potato-peeler is called for. They might be good for something - a softball game perhaps - but never pie.