I love this time of year.  It brings back childhood memories of running through late-summer orchards, eating ripe peaches from the tree and not caring that the fuzz tickled and that juice was running down my face and neck.

My home town was the epicenter of fruit-growing in Utah.  The road, two blocks from my house, was, in fact, known as the Famous Fruit Highway.  And the start of September signals Peach Days.

Peach Days are such a big celebration in this fruit-loving part of the world, that there is even a parade and a Peach Queen.Now that I live in the “big” city of Salt Lake, peaches mostly come in boxes and sit on grocer displays.  I find them at the farmer’s market, too, of course.  But, neither is quite the same as the taste and feeling of eating them fresh-off-the-tree.

It got me thinking about food and memory and how it all comes together to create moments of nostalgia or to make certain foods irresistible.

Pumpkins – bright orange, sweet squash of any sort actually…kabocha and kuri to name two.  The obsession started years ago with my love of pumpkin pie.  Today, I eat them in many ways all meals of the day.

Eating sweet, warm cherry tomatoes off the vine.  I used to be a community garden youth teacher; those little tomatoes changed many a child’s mind about where vegetables come from and that they can actually taste good.

Raiding my neighbor’s garden for sweet corn and snap peas and eating them on the spot (I was 7, but if my current neighbors had fresh vegetables, I wouldn’t put it past me to sneak some today).

Eating sweet, black cherries until my belly grumbled from eating too many and, as a child, canning tart cherries with my mom for winter-time pies.

With all of the fresh, local (except for the lovely black figs from California) produce, it’s been a week of vegetarian fare, from simple and colorful tasting plates and salads to roasted vegetables with fresh herbs.