Peachy Pudding
+ next sex ed book club
I walk to the co-op and head straight for the peaches. Since the pudding bakes fast, the recipe calls for very ripe fruit. I’m hoping for peaches so ripe that they easily puncture under the press of my thumb, but they prove to be firmer than that, so I find an employee and ask if they happen to have anything riper. Ones that might be on their way out, I add, my voice trailing towards her back as she walks away to consult a co-worker. She returns and tells me they only have what’s on the floor. But I’ll help you look for some, she volunteers.
We start scavenging through the wooden crates together. Palpating. Plucking potential candidates. Asking what do you think? Passing them off to each other to reach a consensus.
Thank you so much for helping me.
Oh, you’re welcome, she says giddily. I’m happy to be here. I’m usually with the veggies but I love being with the fruit.
Her choice to use the word with strikes me. She could have said I love being on fruit. But to be on the same level as the fruit, to be with them, is to have a rightful reverence for them, to appreciate the way they breathe life and joy into us for a short and piercingly bright season.
She tells me good luck with the pudding and I don’t tell her this but I hope, secretly, that I see her again and I can update her on how it turned out, thank her again for being a part of the process.
I head home to make the pudding. I only have an hour or so before my date gets here, but luckily it bakes fast, and luckily we’ll be able to eat it as fresh and warm as possible. I crowd the peaches in the baking dish. It calls for plums but I prefer the lucent crescent moon of peach slices, all piled on top of one other like college students lounging in the sun on a university green. I pour the buttery batter around them. They become sutured by the mixture of flour and milk and eggs.
He eventually shows up at my place and we drive 20 minutes out of town to a farm overlooking the lake. We head for the on-site bakery first, picking up a loaf of olive bread to add to our picnic.
This bread has six types of olives! I guffaw. Can you even name six types?
Oh, easy, he spits back, and without skipping a beat, starts reciting them while tearing off pieces of bread. There are the usual suspects – kalamata, castelvetrano – but then he lists a handful I haven’t heard of and won’t remember.
We drive to the water, bread and cheese and peachy pudding in tow, amble through the woods and emerge onto a rocky beach. He gives me a refresher on how to skip rocks and while I practice, he sets up our picnic. It’s one of those days when the temperature is confusing, when the sun is shrouded in clouds that look like gauzy fabric, its light trying to break through haziness. I ask him about a dessert they have on the menu at his work right now.
How do you make the peach compote thing on top? I ask.
It’s a peach gastrique so you use sugar and vinegar, he says, and I’m suddenly rosied by his use of the word, nodding along as if it doesn’t ring exotic to me.
I look it up later and one recipe says to caramelize the sugar first for a richer, more complex flavor, then deglaze it by carefully adding vinegar and water. Toss in the peaches and simmer until the fruit is tender. You can puree it and strain it through a sieve to make a smoother sauce.
We talk about food and family. We look out at the lake and wonder what that island in the distance is called. I tell him about the sample snack plates my dad made us when I was a kid, when I’d sneak down from my bedroom and sit on the couch next to him, the glow of the TV washing over us as we reached for the same paper plate. I remember banana slices sprinkled with sugar, PB & J’s with the crusts cut off and Lays potato chips wedged in the middle, toaster strudels cut up into perfect tiny squares and ribboned with glaze.
I pick up a piece of the pudding and squish it between my fingers. The top is slightly crunchy from the caramelized brown sugar and the inside is custardy, reminiscent of bread pudding. It’s confusing, like the weather, sliceable and scoopable at once. I like how it holds its shape but leaves my fingers glossy. The peaches could be jammier. I think about making it again and, next time, putting the peaches in a brown paper bag with a banana to soften them, to more easily pierce through their fuzzy skin. I imagine them in the oven, turning thick and syrupy, slices losing their shape to a more honeyed state.
SEX ED BOOK CLUB : SEPT 24th
Next Sex Ed Book Club is in one week! Wednesday Sept 24th at 7pm. We’re reading Sexy Cake by Cake Zine. If you’d like to join / read along, reply to this email and I’ll send you a link with event details + a PDF of the zine.
