well, sort of ripe. It seems as though we guessed wrong on a few of them, possibly the majority of them, but there they were, boxed and waiting to be bottled. Mom showed up with canner in hand and we got to work. For some reason in my decent sized kitchen we seemed to be right on top of each other, up to the elbows in sugary, peachy mess. We blanched, we peeled, we sliced, we bottled. Sounds easy, I know, but for some reason it wasn't. Things just kept going wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Three hours later we were sitting on the back deck waiting for batch number two to process.
"Maybe we should call it a day."
"I know. I just had such high hopes." I replied dejectedly.
"They're dashed. Get over it." she said without missing a beat.
"Did you just tell me to get over it?"
And then we doubled over with laughter. Two sticky brunettes in aprons letting the days frustrations out in a fit of joyous laughter, and then my thoughts turned to what had gone right with the day. I had spent 3 hours with one of my favorite people. She was patient with my ineptness and and kind in her teaching. We talked about food storage, Sting/John Mayer's love life and dragonflies. We worked in comfortable silence when we felt like it. It's always so easy being with her.
At the end our ordeal we almost made the mistake of figuring out how much those 14 quarts of peaches had cost us in time, but we stopped ourselves . . . and agreed to reconvene the next day.
Store bought peaches are boring anyway. They don't have near the character that our half ripe, bruised, oddly sliced peaches have. And they don't taste half as good with homemade frozen yogurt.
See mom, I'm over it already.
5 comments:
I HATE canned peaches and I was forced to spend hours in the hot kitchen canning them every year. But this year my sister is coming home from NM to can and I can't wait to get in that hot, sticky kitchen with my Mom and my sisters and can disgusting bottled peaches!
We love bottled peaches, so much more tasty then the canned ones from the store. I'm waiting for my order from Laurie to do ours. Fun you have your mom close to do it together.
I loved this!
What a sweet post. You are a great daughter.
I'm renting the next moving truck and moving to some paradisiacal half-way point between Layton and Sandy. And will you save me a quart of peaches? I'll bring the cream. (By the way, my mother served me peaches and skim milk for my entire childhood and called it "peaches and cream." My sister-in-law alerted me to the deception, but I've gotten over it and I'll bring the cream and we can invite her to come share, too.)
Love, S.
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