August 2017: Simple Peach Compote
In college I had a professor who prompted us to write about our refrigerators. I was 19 and lived in an apartment in Spanish Harlem with two recent college graduates, both actors. The apartment was a long shotgun apartment, and my bedroom was an alcove with no door, next to another alcove that was a bedroom without a door. The roommate who was on the lease had crammed a mattress into the only closet and made a bedroom there. The kitchen was a thin strip of linoleum with a stove and a sink. The refrigerator couldn't fit, so it was in another room, the same room where we all kept our clothes on clothing racks and in plastic bins. I nailed a piece of rope into the wall to make a curtain from a bed sheet in my room, paid $416 in rent, and kept nothing in the dirty refrigerator. Once the stoner roommate left a bowl of half eaten cereal in the sink so long that the milk turned to a grey putty. I threw the bowl away and shrugged when she asked if I had done the dishes.
I couldn't write about that refrigerator, so ugly and empty. I wrote about the refrigerator from my childhood: we always had six Dannon yogurts and six oranges for the lunch my father packed in his Coleman cooler every day except Sunday. He ate whole wheat bread and we ate white bread, fluffy slices slathered with butter or Smuckers jam. There were defrosting rectangles of ground beef for dinner, a tupperware of leftover lasagna, two cans of Juicy Juice that had to be opened with the pointy side of a can opener, leaving vampire triangle wedges in the top from which you poured the juice. And ever present were the emerald green bottles of Rolling Rock, with the white horse galloping around the side of the bottle. I didn't realize how indelible those bottles were until Eileen Myles wrote about them in Chelsea Girls. I read the book the same year the professor told us to describe our refrigerators and became giddy that another writer knew what I was talking about. I wanted it to mean something. It would be many years until I would tell people that coincidence was my first higher power.
I thought of this last night, in one of those mundane but tender moments when I can feel my younger self embodied in my present self. I was on the phone in the kitchen talking to someone about god. I wish there was another way to say this, or a way to avoid telling you what the phone calls are about, but there's no way around if. A few times a week I talk on the phone to people about god. My god is a lower case god, has nothing to do with whatever you picture when you hear the word god, and is mostly a one-syllable shorthand for some grace I otherwise cannot describe. These are people that I talk to were once strangers, now friends. They are older than me, younger than me, with a cackle laugh or a charming accent, a voice thick with worry or thin with humility. They live in Brooklyn, or a high rise in Manhattan, a condo in Queens. They're calling from the beach or their mother's house or a hotel bathroom. I've called them from parked cars and an empty dock on a bay in Cape Cod and the park bench two blocks from my office where I can sit with my face towards the sun. We may start the conversation with whatever ails us, but the phone call will inevitably become about our own tentative spirits, the magic we cannot name, our shorthand words for the divine. Last night, there were golden beets on the kitchen counter, a book open beside them, smudges of yogurt from that morning on the countertop, my phone pressed hot to my ear as I listened. While listening I turned and opened the fridge, bent to get a can of seltzer, and straightening, could recognize my younger self in my present self. There would appear to be a gulf between us: the 19 year old with the bed sheet curtain and no food in the fridge. The twenty three year old in the apartment by herself, a refrigerator of salted butter, white bread, a browning avocado, a six pack of Bud Light. The twenty eight year old who would desperately love a woman older than her who always had vegetables in her fridge, bright and responsible. And the person that the younger self could never have dreamed up: bending to retrieve a seltzer, a fridge stocked with jams and tortillas, scallions peeking out from the crisper, organic half and half, rice vinegar that has followed me through three apartments, a Diet Coke from a party a long time ago, a glass pan of peach cobbler, covered in foil, a spoon sticking out even though it annoys me but I know enough to let it go.
What if we have to become willing to accept whatever good things the universe wants to send us? I asked the girl on the phone. I bumped the fridge door with my hip to close it. The question was half for her and half for me, a reminder of when and how I stand in my own way. A collection of magnets on the front of the fridge held everything from a photo of Emily's mom, to a funeral card, a chart of local produce that's in season, a friends' wedding announcement, a jury summons, a card from Valentine's Day. Years ago I sat in a fancy living room to hear the poet Marie Howe speak to an intimate room of writers. Someone asked her about her idea of god, describing a poem she wrote in which god was in the crumbs on the breakfast table, the color of the jam jar, the slant of sunlight.
Oh, but that's it, she said, her face tender with laughter. That's it. You've just described it. You've just described it beautifully.
xo,
c
Simple Peach Compote
adapted from southernm
I love to bake with peaches, but this is such a simple way of making them without having to turn on my oven or make a crumble topping or anything like that. Plus I couldn't write about jam without wanting to make something jam-y.
3 peaches, pitted and diced (skin them if you don't want skin in your compote, but I like it rustic)
1/4 c. - 1/2 c. brown sugar (1/2 c. is borderline too sweet, so dial it back if you want something more subtle)
1/2 tp. vanilla extract
1/4 c. of water
1/2 tp. nutmeg
Mix ingredients in a medium sauce pan and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 12 - 14 minutes, stirring frequently. The compote will become syrupy and start to coat the back of a spoon when it's ready. (In the past, though, I've boiled this too long and it's become hardened and terrible, so beware!) Remove from heat and allow to cool briefly before serving on pancakes, french toast, ice cream, or biscuits (drool).
P.S.
* Am loving these many recipes from Julia Turshen on what to do with summer produce!
* My friend recommended that I follow the Japanese hedgehogs Azuki and Uni on Instagram, and I am forever grateful.
* Fran Lebowitz on race = so much packed into just a few paragraphs
* NYC friends! I'm going to start teaching a six week writing workshop in my home in September called Finish What You Start. If you're interested, gimmie a shout! I'll post official details soon, but wanted to gauge interest here before opening it up. <3