It is spring in the northern hemisphere, and the peaches cost eighty-nine cents with a digital coupon at Fry’s. Sam Sifton, the food guy for the New York Times, wrote in his recipe for peach pie that, “For most of us, a great and truly perfect peach is a rare event. We can expect but one or two a season, for all our trying. Enter the pie. A peach pie can elevate good peaches to excellence and great ones to the sublime.� That is usually true here but I hail from Utah where the peaches, especially Freestone, separate from the pit, etching the flesh red, are usually delicious. But this year, the peaches at Fry’s have been delicious. They come in hard, but you can press them and feel the slightest give. I had peaches that started hard as rocks and ended still like a rock but shriveled. It’s a great peach year.
My friends who grew the only peach tree I know about in Flagstaff are back for a visit. I am worried about them. They have nonstop appointments with everyone in town it seems. I picture them zooming up and down Flagstaff streets, weaving themselves back into the community that misses them. One thread from the fabric doesn’t destroy the fabric and, when they visit, there is room to weft and warp them back into the fold.
Nicole Walker is the author of seven books, most recently Processed Meats: Essays on Food, Flesh, and Navigating Disaster. She teaches at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff. The words here are her own and do not necessarily reflect those of her employer.
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