Where to Find a Perfect Peach

Let's get this out of the way at the beginning: they're expensive.

They're also extremely rare. Finding a perfect peach in modern America is almost impossible. There are whole generations of people who think that peaches are supposed to be crisp and crunch when you take a bite. But these are real peaches: so fragrant their perfume drives you mad. And so soft and juicy you're tempted to climb into the bathtub every time you eat one.

They're also remarkably seasonal: I wait for these all year.

So if you're like me, and you dream of peaches, you'd choose one of these wonderful Frog Hollow peaches over chocolate cake, ice cream - or just about anything else you can name.

And if you're like me, you'll be ordering some from Farmer Al this week. Wait and you'll be out of luck. 

Would you like to throw a stone at me?
Here, take all that’s left of my peach.

Blood-red, deep;
Heaven knows how it came to pass.
Somebody’s pound of flesh rendered up.

Wrinkled with secrets
And hard with the intention to keep them.

Why, from silvery peach-bloom,
From that shallow-silvery wine-glass on a short term
This rolling, dropping heavy globule?

I am thinking, of course, of the peach before I ate it.

Why so velvety, why so voluptuous heavy?
Why hanging with such inordinate weight?
Why so indented?

Why the groove?
Why the lovely, bivalve roundnesses?
Why the ripple down the sphere?
Why the suggestion of incision?

Why was not my peach round and finished like a billiard ball?
It would have been if man had made it.
Though I’ve eaten it now.
But it wasn’t round and finished like a billiard ball.
And because I say so, you would like to throw something at me.

Here, you can have my peach stone.

-Peach, D.H. Lawrence