after years of avoiding them altogether thanks to being ruined in my early years by their canned commercial cousins, i am thoroughly enjoying my Rediscovery of The Peach. in a way it’s funny because, of course, we’re all about fresh, local and organic. i mean, we have back yard chickens for pete’s sake. we’re part of a csa, have several gardens and i’m the milk and cream product manager for organic valley. we’re sitting right at the “grow yer own peak” of the evolving organic lifestyle.

and yet, until very recently i still thought a store peach was A Peach. i am here to testify to you that unless you are very lucky, it is Not A Peach. not at all. not even close. it’s a tasteless, mealy peach imposter.

A Real Peach is transformative. no, really, this is not hyperbole. i finally, really understand why alice waters imagined The Peach would change lives:

“It started with a peach. Not just any peach but a Frog Hollow Farm peach, coaxed into its fullness by the rich loam of the Sacramento River Delta. A golden peach suffused with a lover’s blush, a hint of erotic give at the cleft, its juice sliding down the chin at the gentlest pressure — it was a peach that tastes the way peaches once did, the way they should. It was the peach with which Alice Waters, the founder of Chez Panisse in Berkeley, the chef who revolutionized American fine dining, imagined she would transform children’s lives.”

“It was Frog Hollow peaches, which can sell for about $5 a pound, that Waters took seven years ago to the first day of summer session at Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School in Berkeley. She was carving an organic garden out of a parking lot next to the playground, planting the seeds for a schoolwide program to promote ecological and gastronomic literacy. One bite of these peaches, she thought, and the scales placed on students’ eyes by the false prophets of the junk-food industry would fall away.”

transformative indeed. and if you add a bit of heavy whipping cream and just the slightest sprinkle of sugar the A Real Peach you’ll have The Worlds Best Peaches and Cream. i wish i had recorded our collective reactions to tasting it for the first time and caught the pause and eye-widening and mouth-filled “oooooooooh, this is good!” exclamations.

i know we’ll be patiently waiting every year for these Wonders of Nature to arrive.