By The first week of August, and the summer is beginning to show its age — not cooler, not shorter, but with a quality of lateness that you feel in the angle of the afternoon light and the subtle shift in the insect chorus from jubilant to elegiac. The cicadas are still singing but they are singing differently now, the way a choir sings the last hymn — not softer but more aware that the singing will end.
Carrie starts her junior year at Ashley Hall next week. She has spent the last days of summer rearranging her room, hanging the prints she bought in New York, placing the calligraphy brush and ink stone on her desk like artifacts in a museum. Her room is becoming a map of her interests — Japan, literature, the world beyond Charleston — and the map is growing larger while the room stays the same size, which is the essential tension of adolescence: the inside expanding faster than the outside can accommodate.
Mama and I canned peaches on Wednesday. Johns Island peaches, the last good ones of the season. Mama's hands shook over the jars, but her knowledge was steady — the sugar syrup ratio, the headspace, the water bath timing. She has canned peaches every summer for sixty years, and the body remembers what the mind is releasing, and the remembering is in her hands, not her head. We made twelve jars. I labeled them in my librarian's hand: "Peaches, August 2018, Naomi & Carolyn." The labels are documentation. The documentation is love.
I have been thinking about the cookbook more seriously this week — not as a someday project but as a soon project. Mama's recipes are in my hands now, literally and figuratively, and the transfer is not complete. There are dishes she made that I have not yet learned, flavors she achieved that I cannot yet reproduce. The window is narrowing. Every week, the window narrows. And I am standing at it, writing down what I can see before the glass fogs over.
I made pickled okra — a preservation project that suited the week's mood. The okra from the James Island farm stand, the vinegar and dill and garlic, the satisfying pop of the jar sealing. Preservation is the theme of my life right now: preserving Mama's recipes, preserving Mama's dignity, preserving the fiction that time is not doing what time is doing. The okra doesn't know it's being preserved. It simply submits to the process and becomes something that will last longer than it was meant to. There is a lesson in the okra. I am learning it.
We put twelve jars of peaches up on Wednesday, and they will carry us through the gray months ahead — but after Mama went to rest, I sliced two of the best ones just to eat them as they were, standing at the kitchen counter in the last of the afternoon light. That impulse is what led me to this salad: a way to honor the peach before it becomes something preserved, while it is still fully and briefly itself. If canning is an act of love stretched across time, this recipe is love in the present tense — the peach at its peak, paired with creamy burrata and a drizzle of honey, asking nothing more of you than to pay attention while it lasts.
Peach Burrata Salad
Prep Time: 10 minutes | Cook Time: 0 minutes | Total Time: 10 minutes | Servings: 4
Ingredients
- 3 ripe peaches, pitted and sliced into wedges
- 8 oz fresh burrata cheese (2 balls)
- 3 oz baby arugula
- 1/4 cup fresh basil leaves, torn
- 3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
- 1 1/2 tablespoons honey
- 1 tablespoon balsamic glaze
- 1/4 teaspoon flaky sea salt
- 1/4 teaspoon freshly cracked black pepper
- 2 tablespoons toasted chopped pistachios (optional)
Instructions
- Prepare the peaches. Wash and dry the peaches. Slice each peach in half, remove the pit, and cut each half into 3–4 wedges. Use the ripest peaches you can find — the sweetness of the fruit is the heart of this dish.
- Arrange the base. Spread the arugula in an even layer across a large serving platter or shallow bowl.
- Add the peaches. Arrange the peach wedges over the arugula, distributing them evenly across the platter.
- Place the burrata. Tear or gently place the burrata balls on top of the salad, allowing them to rest among the peaches. If desired, break them open slightly so the creamy interior begins to spill out.
- Dress the salad. Drizzle the olive oil and honey evenly over the entire salad. Follow with the balsamic glaze, letting it fall in thin ribbons across the fruit and cheese.
- Finish and serve. Scatter the torn basil leaves and toasted pistachios (if using) over the top. Season with flaky sea salt and cracked black pepper. Serve immediately at room temperature.
Nutrition (per serving)
Calories: 290 | Protein: 9g | Fat: 21g | Carbs: 18g | Fiber: 2g | Sodium: 210mg