COOL

The heat is supposed to abate today, and we hope to be able to take Sweetpea to the Fair tomorrow. Our Fair-Going friends were here this time last year, and we miss them, but we hope to see them end-of-the-month in Louisville, where their son is running in the Iron Man competition. I TRY to encompass the endurance and training and discipline that must entail, and words just fail.

To go and be in the vicinity of all that energy and sweat and sheer will-to-endure that will be rife in the air of that place---I don't think there could be a spot at that moment with more concentration of effort, with each stroke in the water, each pump of the pedals, each step of that marathon like the final stages of labor, of just one more ounce, of giving everything you have, and then finding more. It may be too hard a thing to witness, from that close a distance---those great surges of the human spirit, giving all that they have to their goal.

I wish them fair weather for this combat, and Godspeed in their race.

In this heat, this immediate moment of lowering, breath-stifling heat we've had, only a cool supper seems inviting. So, for the least possible heat in the kitchen:

Chris’ Mahogany Chicken:




Some Pinto-Bean Salsa---a rinsed can of Pintos, minced sweet onion, a bit of pickled jalapeno, a wisp of pimiento for color, a free hand with the lime and salt.

Devilled eggs---very simple and plain, tangy with mustard:

Peaches, perfect in the market right now. I have five more getting perfectly-ripe beneath the cakedome, and hope I’m stirred to make a pie this afternoon. One fits nicely into the small oven upstairs.

A quick boil of water in the electric kettle, a three-minute bath, and they just slip right out of their skins:

Warm and luscious and just dropping from the seed:

I really prefer the taste of the clings, but they’re all done for the year; the Freestones have a heartier, more almond-y depth, almost a bitter tang, but with a little sprinkle of sugar and just a mere glance at the vanilla bottle, they’re one of the delights of the season.

For a pie, it’s the same---a little more sugar, a few shards of butter dotted atop, a rolled crust or a cobbler batter, or a rough-crimped rustic galette---they’re all heavenly this time of year. And if you feel the need to put cinnamon in your peach pie, I don’t want to hear about it.