PEACHES AT THE FARMERS MARKET

It wasn’t until a visit as a child while on a family vacation to the Farmers Market in downtown Los Angeles that I understood what a real peach should taste like.

The marketplace was unlike anything I had seen before. It was filled with culinary wonders, and I’m pretty sure that we ate my favorite, barbecued chicken, for lunch. But when my eyes landed on the glorious display of large, fuzzy peaches, nothing else mattered. I had to have one. 

My mother obliged, and we brought one back to our hotel room. I would not eat my precious treasure at first because it was too beautiful to eat, but I soon gave in. And when I did…I was met with the most luscious, juiciest, peachiest tasting peach in the entire existence of the universe! Yes. It was that good.

PEACHES ON WILDFLOWER LANE

It wasn’t until I moved to Wildflower Lane that I tasted a peach as good as the one on my day of peach epiphany.

When Doug and I bought our land, we had visions of creating a small orchard. This was our opportunity to grow an assortment of fruits. We planted the usuals - apples, pears, and cherries. But there were two that I absolutely had to have - Asian pears, and PEACHES. 

It took a couple of years for our first peach harvest and it was well worth the wait. My hopes for a peach as good as the one at the farmers market in Los Angeles decades ago came to fruition as I bit into that small, fuzzy little orb. Suddenly, I was transported back to that hotel room in California: the day that I entered Peach Heaven.

What do I do with all of those peaches from heaven? I make pie!