I bought twelve.
Whenever I buy peaches, I think of Peter Cook and Dudley Moore's Frog and Peach sketch, and of TS Eliot's The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.
Baked peaches are best skinned, so I put the first six peaches in a bowl and poured boiling water over them. Not much happened, and then I remembered that to skin a peach, it's necessary to score a line around its circumference.
As I was preparing the second batch of six peaches for skinning, I decided to keep one back. Having remembered the scoring technique, the skins slipped easily off the remaining five. I halved and stoned the eleven peaches, arranged them in a dish, sprinkled them with cinnamon, a little sugar, and a lot of sherry.
Whilst they cooked (forty minutes at 180 degrees C, if you need to know) I thought of Prufrock's self-conscious wondering about whether to attempt to hide his bald patch / wear white flannel trousers / eat a peach.
I ate the twelfth peach over the sink, juice running down my chin, onto my blouse.
Wonderful- a perfect start to a Sunday- a neat, sweet blog post, Pete, Dud and Prufrock. Thank you!
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