Nectar(ine) of the gods.

As you may remember, peaches are one of my favorite foods in the world. It's early peach season, and I've been eagerly checking my grocery stores and farmers' markets for their arrival. Of course, grocery stores seem to carry them all year now, but they're often sad, green, and flavorless. I started seeing peach sale signs in May, but nothing looked too promising. So when I walked into the store at the beginning of June and was hit with the smell of ripe, sunny goodness, I followed my nose to a mound of fruit.

They turned out to be nectarines -- I've been eating both my whole life and finally decided to find out how they were related. It turns out that nectarines are a cultivar group (varietal selected for its desirable traits) of peaches which lack the dominant allele for fuzzy skin. Interestingly, I also learned that there's a fruit called a "peacherine," which may be a cross between peaches and nectarines or peaches and apricots. I've had peaches, nectarines, apricots, plums, plumcots, and pluots, but never peacherines.

Science aside, the nectarine was an absolutely perfect complement to a few slices of nutty Tomme de Savoie -- I would eat that cheese plain any day, but it was so delicious that I had been trying to find more special ways of serving it. The juicy, sweet slices of blushing fruit were downright celebratory. (Served over a bed of arugula tossed with lemon juice, olive oil, salt, and pepper; sprinkled with Marcona almonds.)