Peaches and Kevin Skinner

Washington peaches are in! I went to the Federal Way farmer's market today (after getting my tire fixed and my hair trimmed), and what a beautiful day it is. Not too hot--around 75 to 80 degrees F when I went--with a slight breeze. I often make it to the market just short of closing time around 3 pm, but this time I got in around noon.

There is something wonderful about the bounty of a farmer's market. It's all laid out there for you to see on the tables, with the farmers or pickers themselves manning the outlay. It's so fresh, you can smell the scents of the fresh vegetables, fruit, and cut flowers, in addition to the lunch-time treats made up by local restaurants and cafes. The colors are gorgeous; today there were the first tomatoes I've seen of the season, huge heirloom tomatoes that go from the rusty orange red kind, to the ones that are more of a red with a purple undertone. Some of these tomatoes are huge, bigger than my outstretched hand. Some of them are the smaller ones on the vine, small enough to pop into my mouth so that when I bite down, the sweet-tart tomato juices flood my mouth all at once (a.k.a., a tomato orgasm). Glistening green zucchini, gleaming bulbs of onion, and corn! The first corn that I've seen at the market today, the candy-sweet kind with alternating white and yellow kernels. There were apples from Quincy on the other side of the Cascade mountains--Fuji, Pink Lady, Braeburns--big and beautiful, blushing red over light green. Deep red raspberries and dark purple blueberries. Bing and Rainier cherries (the Rainiers are my favorite--I eat them like candy). Flowers, from delicate fragrant pastel-colored sweet peas to huge white and magenta lilies.

And the peaches. Washington peaches. There is nothing better than ripe, fresh-picked Washington peaches. Oh, I'm sure the California ones and famous Georgia ones are lovely, but you know they're shipped not-totally-ripe so that they keep well in the stores, and the fact is, they just aren't as sweet and juicy as the local ones. I'm sure this is why buying local fruit and vegetables is simply better. You get them ripe, you get them fresh, and they are incredibly delicious. You can smell the scent of them, and I'm sure that lends a great deal to the anticipation of the flavor.

I have a peach now at my computer desk, and I have to have a damp towel as well, because this big luscious, golden-dawn-colored early New Haven peach is so dripping sweet, the juices just run off my chin and over my fingers, that's how good it is. There are few treats better than this on a hot summer day.

So when John comes home from his bike ride, he is going to be presented with a NICE dinner. Fresh clams from Quilcene Bay (from the farmer's market) just picked this morning, corn-on-the-cob, a side of Swiss chard (my newly discovered favorite vegetable), and toasted pita bread with either aioli sauce or sour-cream dill dip. Dessert will be a strawberry smoothie, made with frozen strawberries (earlier bought at the farmer's market, then frozen).

I can hardly wait. Yum!!! There is nothing like fresh fruit and vegetables in season.

Later: I changed my mind. Instead of pita, I decided to have crackers and dip instead, as I wanted to save the pitas for pita pizzas. Just the right size for the two of us. Also, I decided to combine the Swiss chard with some Russian pirogi dumplings, which is looking pretty good (I'm cooking them now. The pirogi, I bought at the farmer's market, and the gentleman there suggested that if I were to eat them later, I might want to fry them. (They are cheese and potato stuffed pirogi.) But...just by themselves? So I sauted some garlic, added chopped Swiss chard, and it is looking pretty danged good. I will report back after dinner.


About Kevin Skinner:

I'm not fond of reality shows, and the talent ones often pain me because of how the not-very-talented ones are booed so horribly and made fun of. However, I can bear to see the ones on YouTube, as I love discovering new talent, and I love seeing talent from ordinary people get a chance to shine. I especially love it when ordinary-looking people upset people's very surface opinions of them. Susan Boyle was one such, and Kevin Skinner is another.

I will listen to country music every once in a while--I only came to listen to it as an adult, and a middle-aged one at that. But Kevin Skinner made me want to listen to more of it.

I suspected that since he was the last one to audition for that day, he was going to be better than most. Indeed he was. He has a southern backwoods accent which I have never heard before, so I was intrigued (I love hearing different accents), and wore clothes that were casual in the extreme--stuff that I'd probably wear at home when gardening in cool weather. He talked a bit about his past employment and what he wanted to sing, and though I don't think Ms. Osborne was malicious when she laughed at his accent (she seems like a very kind person; I think she was more surprised and delighted than anything else, and you know, his accent was so very strong), I don't hold out much hope for some in the audience.

Yet, the audience seemed spellbound to silence when Mr. Skinner played and sang in his warm and kind voice, and with good reason. He did indeed play well and with grace and plain dignity. I read some of the comments on YouTube, and he did what all good singers and musicians do: he moved so many to sit by their loved ones and cherish their time with them. I saw more than a few from soldiers and sailors going off to war, and I think it must have been a comfort to them, as well as to those who wrote that their loved ones were ill or dying. And what better thing can an artist do than to uplift and give comfort to those in need of it?

Regardless of how Mr. Skinner does in the rest of the competition, he rose above petty expectations and gave the world some comfort and hope. So God bless you, Kevin Skinner, for gift of that moment.