Dinner From a Box 6-13 to 6-20

Box contents: Nectarine, Yellow (1.5 lb), Blueberries (1 container), Plums (1 lb), Cantaloupe (1), Peach, Yellow (1 lb), Broccoli (1 bunch), Nantes Carrots (1 bunch), Lettuce, Red Leaf (1 head), Persian Cucumber (1 lb), Bing cherries (.75 lb), Strawberries (.5 lb)

We are officially in stone fruit season.  A bout with what was either stomach flu or food poisoning pushed most of my menus into this week, so there really isn’t much to talk about.

Except…

The nectarines in the box are TINY…about two bites worth each.  When I opened the brown paper bag they were packed in as I was doing box inventory (like Christmas every week!), I was immediately reminded of the nectarines my paternal grandfather used to pull off his tree in Santee.  My grandmother would cut them up and turn them into sort of a loose preserve.  We would eat it on toast, stirred into oatmeal or cornmeal mush, or over ice cream.  I don’t have a recipe, but here’s what I expect was in it: stone fruit, sugar, and a little lemon juice.  Both grandparents are gone now (grandma three years and grandpa coming on the one year anniversary).  When I saw those tiny little fruits, I was instantly bombarded by hundreds of  childhood memories: baking cookies with my grandmother, puttering in the garden with my grandfather (well, he puttered while I usually picked flowers or snuck a snack off a nearby tomato plant), my grandmother’s determination to get her pond and waterfall to work…she never really got a satisfactory fountain until they moved to Arizona.

At the moment that Steve proposed last July, as my grandfather was dying, I was heartsick for a split second.  This amazing memory would forever be tainted with my feelings of helplessness and loss, I thought.  Somehow, though, my heart has managed to separate the two…perhaps because it understands that his intentions were amazingly sweet.  I am deeply sad that neither grandparent survived long enough to meet him properly or to see us married.  So this weekend, I will attempt to reproduce my grandmother’s preserve with the nectarines so like my grandfather’s to feed to my love, and know that they will forever be in my heart.  My past will be feeding my future.