Letter from the past
This is the pits
One of the best parts of blogging every day for a month is frantically looking through all my old, half-written posts for something I can throw up on the screen in lieu of real content.
For instance, here is a post that I wrote last summer and never published. It’s like a little time capsule of injury and shame.
Dear 2011 Tara,
I try to stay out of your business most of the time, right? I’m not going to ask if you’re exercising or if that rash cleared up yet. Don’t care whether you’re flossing your teeth or going to church. Those are all things you’ll eventually have to take up with 2030 Tara and Eternal Damnation Tara. But listen, when summer 2011 comes around, there’s a chance you’re going to make a big mistake, and I can’t let it happen without taking a chance at preventing the loss of dignity and skin cells that will ensue.
You’re going to go to a farmers market. Sure, probably not the same one I went to yesterday, but another one. And some man or woman WHO THINKS YOU ARE A CHUMP is going to tell you how awesome his or her peaches are. And because you try to be a clean living sort of person, you will think how fabulous it would be to take a peck of peaches home and freeze them the way you froze other fruits this summer.
You will have forgotten what happened to me.
Let me help you remember. Peeling cold peaches resulted in so much waste that you ended up eating a dozen peels out of sheer guilt. Dipping them into boiling water, which is supposed to loosen the skins, did get you burned but did little to help the peeling. After peeling/pitting/slicing about 75,000 peaches, you ended up with two quarts of fruit. You also sustained two pit stabs (them babies is sharp) in the thumb and middle finger (here, wanna see?), and managed to drop a pit into the garbage disposal.
You tried to blame this on your husband. You failed.
Tara 2010: Honey, I think you accidentally dropped a peach pit into the garbage disposal.
Husband: But I just got home.
T2010: Don’t worry, it’s cool. Now if you’ll just stick your hand down there and get it out, I can finish what I’m doing here.
Husband: You mean, pitting peaches?
T2010: Look, I’m not trying to point fingers. In fact, I’d say you did a great job. Look at that: You got 49 of the pits in the right place. Just one got out of control. Could happen to the best of us. There is no judgment here.
Husband: I’m going back to the driving range.
2011 Tara, you’re going to do what you want to do, and I know I can’t stop you. But if you end up with a husband walking out the door and a bleeding middle finger, don’t come crying to me.
Creative Commons photo courtesy of La Grande Farmers’ Market.
I have to admire anyone who freezes or cans any kind of fruit or vegetable. I enjoy cooking, but I absolutely cannot stand to peel, slice, dice, or chop any form of produce. And my family recognizes my flaw. So, I say screw the frozen peaches and the peels, but much respect to you for your previous efforts.
Man, what kind of Green Acres style life do you live up there in Ohio? Every other time I turn around you are preserving some sort of fruit.
But…let me ask you this. Do you remember how delicious those peaches tasted when you opened them up? How it felt like a bit of that summer sunshine was right there in your kitchen as the winter wind howled outside your window? The warm glow in your heart, watching your smiling, rosy cheeked children eagerly spoon bite after bite of wholesome, handmade peaches into their mouths like hungry baby birds? Watching them shoot up like bamboo and knowing it was because you cared enough to only feed them the very best?
Didn’t that make it worth it all, Tara? Didn’t it?
I laughed so hard at this letter! Throw up some more of these posts….love them!!!
Ha, ha, ha….sounds eerily familiar to my experience trying to prepare sweet corn for freezing. Those ears are hot after dipping them in boiling water and there just has to be a better way to get those little kernels off the cob rather than running a knife down the ear! They are like mini-fireworks that shoot across the room in every direction. I think I found runaway kernels for months afterwards.
So, were the frozen peaches still yummy. I think of freezing all sorts of fresh fruits every summer. But, do I? Maybe this will be the year.
Carol, will you still respect my efforts if I told you I swore my way through the alphabet that day?
Tracy, why are you talking about bamboo on perfectly American post? Besides, I want my children to stay small so that I don’t have to buy more clothes.
Anjuli, believe me, I’ll be looking for more — especially as the month wears on and I stop being able to write complete sentences.
Julie, ha! We’re sisters in produce pain.
Su-sieee!, eh, I don’t even remember if they were any good. They only lasted a couple weeks. The berries were a much better time investment.