When it Rains in Coronado.

September demands a vacation. It's a transitional month, a 30 day split between summer as it slowly melts into fall. Naturally, California, the eternal summer, offered a lovely break before jumping into a new job and extended the summer month just a week longer. A late (but heavily delayed) flight brought me to LAX late Thursday, and the lovely Miss Emily was kind enough to pick me up at the airport. We'd been roommates at university before I bid a tearful goodbye and she left BYU for USC, (a fine trade I suppose) to attend graduate school. It's all very sad until I get to crash at her apartment and spend time with her in Los Angeles. Then it's pretty great. A couple of days full of friends and sunshine was a grand way to spend the weekend, before  hopping on a train at Union Station and headed south towards San Diego for some cousin time. 

Maybe it's because I'm trying to stretch summer just a tad longer, but it ended up pouring buckets on Tuesday. I suppose walking around the shops in Coronado sopping well was an adventure but I was ready for some serious beach time that day. Refuge was found in a corner coffee shop and a rad store until the worst of it was over. The up side of the whole affair was that Coronado looked beautiful when dripping wet, hence the photos. The rest of the week was spent with my little cousins, wandering the beach in the mornings, and staying up late talking. Thrift shopping in Utah doesn't hold a candle to the Salvation Army's and Goodwill's found elsewhere. Of course, an afternoon was spent at the beach though the kids wanted to go to the pool, but "Emily doesn't have a beach where she lives". Right you are, mister. Balboa park also made it into the itinerary, as did lunch at places only found in Coronado. 

 
The Salt Lake City airport greeted me back with monsoon like weather and a definite dip into fall. Armed with wool skirts and ankle boots found thrift shopping, I do think it's time to let summer go...although you can bet popsicles will still make an appearance part way through October. 

A Glut of Peaches

Cobbled, sliced, pie'd, pureed, crisped, jarred, crumbled, grilled, ice creamed, and caked; these peaches have been everywhere. It's a cruel trick of summertime. All season I bide my time just watching these orangey red beauties get bigger and bigger until all 400 of them need to be picked in a 3 day span. I take a taste of the Early Alberta's at the farmer's markets, but I know that I have my own glut of peaches that will be ready in just a few weeks. Hundreds of peaches slowly weigh down the branches so much it makes walking on the sidewalk difficult until they start to drop off the branches themselves. Then, it's time to pick. Peaches are best picked in the late evening, just as the sun sets and you can sit down on the grass and eat the biggest peach you found that night..still warm from the August sun. Juice drips down your face and off your elbow and your surrounded with boxes and boxes and boxes of peaches.

They are handed out to neighbors and mailmen, carried to coworkers, and pawned off to anyone who will take them. 400 peaches are a bit much for 3 people to eat, no matter how many peach pie recipes there are. Then, they are carefully counted (to compare with last year's crop) and the peach production begins.

I can only eat so many peaches right off the tree, so several dozen are carefully sliced into mason jars to be eaten in the far away months. Others are sliced thin and dehydrated, frozen for smoothies, or pureed into fruit leather. The others meet there end in some sort of breakfast, lunch and/or dinner option. Delicious when sliced in a bowl swirled with a little cream, or nestled in a crumbly oat topping, two by two the peaches started to disappear. Peach crumble, peach cobbler, and peach cake each took and few out of the boxes piled up in the garage until only a few dozen remained.

I'm a sucker for early morning light and peaches nestled in flour and sugar (but who isn't?)

And just like that, the peaches are gone. The trees are bare, with leaves that won't be green for all that long. It's an official end to summer. The nights have gotten a bit cooler and the last few peaches are stashed as a fleeting souvenir to the days in the sun. Fall and winter will come, spring will hint at the upcoming peach season with pinky white blossoms and the wait resumes; tiny green pods will slowly grow bigger and bigger, slowly turning orange and blush red, and the branches will slowly droop, until it's time to do it all over again.

A Little Tart

Have I mentioned my love of food puns? This might be the first on the blog, but a few minutes in a grocery store will get the "pun times" rolling. Lame introductory paragraph aside, this weekend was a little bittersweet, but ended with a little tart...quite literally. A week up in Park City with the family was the sweet part; days at the pool, adventuring in the Olympic Park, enjoying a scrumptious Italian dinner, and a float down Provo River proves that point. Though we'd all love Sister C. to be there, she decided to be in England for the past year and for the next six months. I don't really feel that badly, but it was a bit bitter because we had to celebrate her birthday without her the day after our Park City escapades had ended. Psh, not only did she miss the family vacation, she missed her birthday! Not really, we sent the party to her. Bless the people in England who are willing to not only have her over for cake, but make her a classic British dinner, and show her the little film of her friends and family wishing her a happy birthday. England did treat her right, though I'd rather have her in America.

The second dose of bitter was sending sister L. off to college. Though I'm not entirely convinced she's old enough to be in at a university, I suppose that's what happens to smart girls after high school. Perhaps to console myself (or my mom, it's a toss up really), a little fruit tart seemed to be in order. Though it's kinda cute to send photos of the cat as my new roommate to the sister down at school, the reality of the cat actually being my roommate is a touch disheartening.

This is just a preview to the long awaited peach season. I can't wait. 

Because breakfast should be delicious and pretty...and basically dessert

Though the fruit mosaic atop buttery shortbread didn't quite alter that reality, it didn't make anything worse. It does make me sad to see my little sister grow up, I am jubilantly envious she'll be staying up late, eating too many Oreos, and making friends she'll keep through the years. I like flipping back in my journal/sketchbook to reminisce a little bit...though college barely ended, it seems like another chapter of my life (and provides a good reminder that I was still a little foodie, even when on a college budget).