Right now there are peaches available, and we thought we’d re-run Hunter’s column from last year, offering his own take on the delicious fruit.

It’s amazing how fast the seasons slip by in general, but especially this year. I’ve been hearing on the news how there have been unnaturally shorter days or something this year, but for as busy as the family and I have been, it’s hard to stay oriented enough to tell if that’s true or just one of those fake news fluff pieces. That being said it feels like just yesterday we were opening for blueberry picking season and now it’s all but over. We opened for over a month but in a blink it went by. Alongside the berries, however, was peach season, which had been going since even earlier this year. Since I only bring those in from another farmer, I had little reference for when they would be done for the year. With what seems like an equal degree of suddenness, I received the word from our peach farmer friend that there would be no more this year. With our last remaining peaches in the cooler, the decision what to do with them seemed to have all the more serious ramifications. I have this horrible habit of saving goodies like these until they go bad thinking they shouldn’t be wasted or eaten too hastily. This time, however, the peaches were in the hands of grandma.

I may have mentioned it before, but while I work in the butcher shop all week, my wife’s grandmother works in the commercial kitchen out front making weekly goodies like the bread we sell at our farmstand. This week she decided to make muffins out of the peaches to use them up before we lost them. To be honest, I had never eaten or baked a peach muffin before. But having enjoyed other streusel-centric pastries and crisps like apple and blueberry, I wasn’t too concerned with how a peach version would taste.

The best part of these particular peach muffins were that I didn’t have to make them myself. As I worked on cutting beef, I could smell the sweet peach flavor wafting from the other room as it baked in the oven. Before too long, grandma came out with a sample. She was still working on the streusel to add to the top but wanted a verdict on the muffin itself. As expected, it was fantastic. The slices of peaches were softened but still intact within the bread of the muffin. So as I ate through it, there were extra sweet pockets of warm peach flesh to bite into. The flavors around the peach were hinting at those autumn flavor profiles of warm spices like cinnamon and nutmeg, although there wasn’t any nutmeg in the recipe. Perhaps this is what kept the muffin from being too heavy and preserving the bright sweet fruit flavor.

The way out here, we love our seasonal fruits and veggies, and we try to use them in any way we can to get the most out of each year. I may or may not still have a frozen loaf of pear bread in the freezer to emphasize that sentiment. Speaking of which, did you know you can freeze muffins? It’s true. If you can’t eat all of them quickly, try freezing them in tinfoil and freezer bags. Come mid-winter you will thank yourself. But for anyone who can still find peaches, I suggest you make the most of what you can get your hands on now before we make the full transition to apple season and leave peach season behind.