Go for the gold: One Perfect Peach

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Beatriz Da Costa for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Susie Theodorou.

Wednesday, July 8, 2020

One Perfect Peach

Sam Sifton

Good morning. I’m firmly of the opinion that you get one really good peach a year, if you’re lucky, if you don’t live in the South or next to a peach orchard. One peach, soft and juicy and sweet. That’s something to treasure. When I get one, I eat it slowly, with joy.

Of course you’ll get plenty of pretty good peaches along the way, the kind you might use for peach pie or peach cobbler, and definitely for Jerrelle Guy’s new recipe for peach poundcake (above). It’s just terrific. Puréed peaches in the batter keep the cake moist, diced ones add a slick sweetness and a peach glaze ties it all together. Jerrelle suggests serving the cake with lightly sweetened whipped cream. Co-sign!

Have that for dessert this week after a dinner of caprese salad with grilled garlic bread, or a pasta salad with summer tomatoes, basil and olive oil, and see if it doesn’t change the color of your mood ring. (No good tomatoes yet? Try this exquisite sweet corn salad with a wedge of Camembert on the side.)

In another lane, you might take a look at Yewande Komolafe’s sheet-pan gochujang chicken and roasted vegetables, which is super with rice and Eric Kim’s quick kimchi with grape tomatoes.

Me, I’m going to make clam fritters at some point this week, serve them with Paul Carmichael’s curried rice, then have a chocolate pudding for dessert just as I used to when I was 10 and my mom made them special in the summer, a memory I’d lost until I rediscovered the recipe.

I’m going to grill some vegetables, too, serve them under David Tanis’s tahini dressing, room temperature, along with a platter of grilled chicken thighs showered in salt and pepper. You don’t need a recipe for that. Just get some color on them on the hot side of your grill, then move them to a cooler location so you can smoke-roast them under the cover for 25 minutes or so, allowing them to get golden and crisp. Serve that with harissa if you have it, or hot sauce if you don’t. A few warm pitas would not be unwelcome. Nor would an extra drizzle of David’s dressing.

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Now, it’s a long distance from cream sauce and mustard, but this is a fascinating read: Tana Wojczuk on the 19th century American actress Charlotte Cushman, in the Smithsonian magazine.

You should also take a look at this smart and heartbreaking piece by Maya Phillips in The Times, on rewatching the 1992 film “Bébé’s Kids,” an innocent delight for her when it came out, and now a very different work of art.

Finally, this is the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, live at Brownies back in 2002, “Tick.” That must have been some show. I’ll be back on Friday.