I should like fresh peaches, really. I enjoy a canned peach, the kind in heavy syrup that tastes so right with cottage cheese. I love Bellini with breakfast, which I believe has some sort of peach involvement, although now that I write that, I might be confusing them with apricots, which are another fruit of which I am suspect. Apricots, peaches, nectarines, they are one and the same; a whole tribe of weird mons pubis fruit that conspire to fill my mouth with ALL PEACH, ALL THE TIME taste and also, that fuzzy shit, vaguely textured, like a tongue tasting you back. Blech. I enjoy the concept of fresh peaches, the idea of them, is what I'm saying. I just don't enjoy the reality of peaches.

But as for fresh yellow peaches, they brought back memories of my hippy mother standing in our devastatingly hot kitchen, adding to the humidity to the already stifling Midwestern July heat. Air conditioning was verboten, as was underarm deodorant, so imagine how pleasant! And throughout it all was the scent of peaches. Peaches in varying stages of undress. Peach skins turning everything the color of a Great Lake sunset, brown spiny stones littering the floor, just waiting to pierce a tender bare foot. Maybe that was the nail in the coffin of my relationship with peaches. Or maybe it was my 21st birthday, wherein I was served something that had peach schnapps in it. A lot of peach schnapps. Shudder.

So peaches? Not so much. And because of this general prejudice, it transcended to the general peach-type fruit oeuvre. And thus I was pretty sure that "nectarine" was just Latin for "really sucky peach."

When I turned 30, I decided to dedicate myself to eating at very least five fruits and vegetables a day, and after about a year of eating a lot of pineapple, bananas and apples, it became clear that I had to step outside of my comfort zone and try something new because my daily food intake matched too closely the feeding menu at the primate house at the zoo.

Like all things, I approached this with exuberance, trying some crazy-assed shit like pluots (yum) and plumellos (ugh) and pomegranates (where have you been all of my life?) and giving peaches another chance. White peaches to be exact, which are much milder, sweeter versions of their yellow Georgia cousins. I still wasn't crazy about the peach (flashback! Fleetwood Mac! Cosby Show! Carob! Aaargh!) but it was worth shaking up my five-a-day routine and honestly, they were tolerable. I had lost my fruitism against the tribe of peach. Thus, when a depilatoried peach met my gaze in the grocery store, I figured, eh, what the hell, the porn mags seem to think hairless peaches are better, why don't I give it a try?

I had grabbed a white nectarine. Like white peaches, white nectarines are sweeter and milder but while the white peaches maintain some of their original sense of goodness, the white nectarines are OH MY GOD AWESOME. Now, I love me some white nectarines. I can honestly say that they are up there among my most favorite of fruits and I will slurp them right out of the bag on my drive home from the grocery store. In fact, I know that you're not going to believe me when I say this, but if given the choice between a Godiva milk chocolate truffle and a perfectly ripened white nectarine? Fuck, you can buy a truffle at a mall kiosk any day of the year, but a white nectarine? That is a gift of the gods, my friends. Attach those lips and don't let go until you hit the pit.

It's white nectarine season, so do yourself a favor and pick a few up to try on your own. I always like the palest ones, as they seem to taste the least like nectarine and the most like candy, but your mileage may vary. And trust me...you'll never look at peaches the same way again.