Just Peachy

The canning season is about to start and I know there must be others out there like me, hovering around fruit stands and farmers markets, waiting for the harvest season glut of fruits and vegetables to start. Waiting for that time in the season when the produce comes fast and furious, is plentiful and sold by the crate. That is when those of us with a preserver's soul start buying the seasons bounty in a frenzy, after months of careful planning and recipe research on the internet.

I have been dreaming of  canning spiced peaches for months. An older gentleman, the husband of a friend, mentioned his plans for putting up some spiced peaches during an evening out back in early July. Ever since then I have have had delicious thoughts of indulging in a peach filled larder all winter. Spiced peaches over vanilla ice cream especially appealed, particularly since the thermometer hovered over 100 degrees, and 54 days has passed with no rain in Seattle, a record breaking year.

That time is not upon us yet for good peaches, despite it being mid-August.  I know this because I have been to several  local farmers markets and some in the hot eastern part of Washington, where most of our fruit is grown. They have peaches, but they are still hard and are not the preferred Freestone variety. These ones are cling peaches, so named because they cling to their pits. The Freestone peaches won't be in for a couple more weeks, so says a farmer at a fruit stand in Cashmere, Fruit Central USA. I bought a box of the cling peaches, just because the craving was so strong, and as  I was in farm country, stopping for a box was mandatory in my book. I will try them and see what torture it is to wrangle out a resistant pit. We shall see how it goes.

Greg doesn't want me to make  the only peaches that I put up the spiced ones. He wants some plain ones, just like he had in his childhood. I am obliged to do this, because like him, I have has a fondness since childhood for canned peaches in delicious sugar syrup. The home version of these being far superior to the mass produced version found on grocery market shelves. My hope is that more people learn the traditions of preserving the harvest so they can enjoy the burst of flavor that follows when you open that jar.