The Shar-pei of all Peaches

I don’t know about you, but I think this little guy is adorable. How can you not love a peach, even when it’s funny looking?

A friend of mine recently told me that I was like a golden raspberry. While this is a lovely comparison and quite appreciated, I’ve always thought myself a bit more of a peach. Peaches and me, we just go together. In fact, I used to wear peach perfume when I was younger and all the fancy perfumes seemed unbearably sophisticated to me.

Peaches didn't play much of a part in my childhood. We had a dwarf peach tree in our yard but it had peach leaf curl and rarely produced any fruit. At least not any fruit that grew to maturity and ripened. The tiny hard green peaches (all two of them) either fell off the tree of their own accord or were pecked to death by marauding birds. As a kid, I never understood why people made such fuss over peaches.

I can’t remember the first good peach I had, but I can tell you that the best peaches I’ve had were in Japan. Forget the sakuranbo cherries, the ume plums, and nashi apple-pears, the unsung glory of Japanese produce—at least for me—is the peaches.

Japanese peaches might be so extraordinary because they are pampered within an inch of their life. At some point in the maturation process paper bags are tied around the developing fruit to protect it from birds and bugs. In the summer you drive past orchards that look like they are growing paper bags.

But all that care pays off and the peaches in Japan—at least the ones I’ve had—are flawless, huge, and incredibly sweet. Yellow or white, they are extraordinary. They are also expensive. I once bought a box of 6 peaches for $30. They were a present for someone else and I have never been so sad to give a gift away.

Back in the States these past eight years I’ve not had such great peaches. It’s usually possible to find peaches that are pretty good each summer, but I have yet to find greatness. And I must admit to being sorely disappointed by some peaches bought at one of the Ferry Plaza Farmers’ Market stalls about which people rave. They were extremely mediocre, and the fact that I paid so much for them was insult to injury. I had nearly given up on good peaches this year. Worse yet, I had almost forgotten what a good peach tastes like.

But then Shuna showed me the way.

The thing about becoming friends with an extremely knowledgeable pastry chef is that they know where the good stuff is. The thing about becoming friends with a pastry chef as generous as Shuna is that you get to share in that knowledge. And so it was, one Thursday afternoon as Shuna showed me around the North Berkeley Farmers’ Market, that I met Carl Rosato of Woodleaf Farm in Oroville. Shuna was kind enough to introduce us, but I was too distracted to make much conversation. I was fixated on the intoxicating smell wafting up from the gorgeous piles of fruit stacked in the sun.



Oh my gosh.

Carl was nice enough to offer us tastes of the fruit and that small slice melted in my mouth with such a release of sweet syrupy peach flavor that it made me a little weak in the knees.

“Shuna, these are the best peaches I’ve had since Japan.”

Shuna didn’t understand exactly what I was saying. The words were simple enough, but the meaning behind them more complex. The fact is, for eight years I’ve been trying, with each and every peach I taste, to recapture that intense sweet peachiness. Trying and failing, until now.

Apparently, growing peaches in the foothills of the Sierra mountains, at an elevation of 1,300 feet, provides cooler weather and allows the fruit to develop an intense and amazing flavor. Add to this twenty-four years of focus on organic farming—Carl even teaches about organic and sustainable farming though the Going Organic program, which provides education and information to non-organic farmers. All this combines to make a peach so utterly sweet and delicious it is simply unreal.

I bought a case.

Because I wanted to make jam with them I opted for a case of Carl’s “not so pretty” peaches. Appearance doesn’t really matter for jam and the ugly peaches are quite a bit cheaper. But the thing is, I don’t find them ugly at all. I think they’re adorable. These are the peaches Cezanne would have painted if only he had gotten into Cubism a little earlier.



I fell so in love with one of these little guys that I was loath to slice him up. I kept him around for a few days, smiling every time I caught sight of his wrinkled little face. Until he started wrinkling even more and had to be put out of his misery.



A face only a mother could love. Or perhaps only a peach lover. Or anyone who finds it amusing to discover peaches that look like wrinkly Shar-pei puppies.

I had a very peachy day that week, making not only peach jam—Molly's Italian Family Jam, of course—but also peach butter with lemongrass, from Melissa at Traveler's Lunchbox.



Hanging out in the kitchen with a case of peaches was made even more enjoyable by the fact that I’ve had the opportunity to meet and get to know both of these wonderful bloggers this past year—a true delight. Though Melissa is in far off Edinburgh, and Molly in less far but still distant Seattle, I felt like I had company in the kitchen that day.



And the results—the intense peachiness distilled, reduced, made even stronger and more delicious—I’m not sure there are words for it.



I’m only sad I didn’t make more.



I will be waiting next summer for Carl’s amazing peaches. Trust me on this one—the peach girl wouldn’t lead you wrong. Just please leave the ugly ones for me.