The Produce Stand

I don't know who owns this modest and remote little farm stand in a wagon; never asked. A few times I've seen a gardener working the dense, thick victory-garden plot just behind this wagon; don't know if that's the farmer. Tomatoes of several types, eggplants, pickle-type cucumbers, berries, onions, red and white potatoes, squashes (especially pumpkins, in season) are all sold here, but supply depends on what's ripe and whoever got there before I did. Also sells salsa and jam when appropriate. For cheap. I love this little vegetable stand. It's so midsummer in Missouri.

Why Peaches Wear Flannel

To enchant me all you have to do is stake a hand-lettered sign across from the Cynthiana, Indiana, gas station saying "Peaches," with an arrow pointing down the two-lane road. There I found a family peach stand, with neighbors and friends there too because it was the morning of their first day at the stand and there was coffee and everybody had something to say, just like home. Irresistibly the peaches came in cardboard carry baskets with balsa wood handles. I asked a girl child the price. She told me "Seven dollars." I asked if she grew the peaches herself and she said, "Our orchard's over there," and pointed, and sure enough, across the road  were rows of short-ish peach tree loaded with glamorous fat fruits that I shamelessly eat over the kitchen sink while juice runs down my face and arms.

Technically, peachfuzz is armor. The fuzz repels insects who'd otherwise bore into and suck on the fruit. The fuzz also traps moisture from the air. Peaches don't grow well in the rocky soil in our own hilly area, so we usually go eastward to orchards in Illinois; I just happened to be in Indiana. But I like buying direct and driving home with ripe sun-warmed peaches scenting the car. I have also heard that one should really peel peaches because of possible pesticides, so I peel about every other peach although I'm too enchanted by peach-flannel to give it up entirely. How do you like yours? With fuzz or without (meaning nectarines)?

Everything's Good This Time of Year

Please stop in at your local farmer's market or fruit and vegetable stand because this time of year you cannot go wrong. If it grows in your locale, it's at its peak. So what if it's 100 degrees. I sorted through the Missouri tomatoes for the squat-looking Big Beefs and Brandywines, bought the sweetest local corn (had it for lunch along with my own baked steak fries; now that's divine) and local nectarines, a local eggplant with such lovely purple cheeks I want to kiss it, some zucchini and green beans, and I admired the plums, famously sweet Vidalia onions ("You only cry when they are gone"), brand-new baby potatoes both red and Yukon, and the avalanche of melons.

Andy's is in House Springs, also called House Sprangs, and operates 11 hours a day in summer, like many such businesses. I asked the beautiful lady who waited on me (pictured) if she was the owner. She said she was the Owner's Wof.

This is my idea of heaven.