There is a tree on our road that grows the best peaches in all of Colorado. That’s a substantial claim, but I’m willing to defend it. I sent Lewis down on his bike to monkey around and pick the ones that nobody else could reach.
Matt made a creamy peach pie this weekend with a custard base and a whipped cream topping. We first tasted this particular pie on our pre-kids cross country road trips . We were often in southwest Arkansas with Matt’s grandmother, Mary Jane and her three best friends…Wilma, Sister, and Weezie. Of all our travels, our time spent with these ladies was absolutely the best. They doted on Matt and he on them. Witty and smart, they were of the generation that never left the house without being completely put together. Hair done, nails, feminine shoes that matched hand bags, diamonds, everything flawlessly coordinated and always lipstick. Kate Spade would have to take a back seat to these ladies.
We were (are) ragamuffins, but they didn’t care. Matt would mend gutters, paint bedrooms, and do the things that needed doing around their tidy homes. At night we would chauffer them (and their cocktails) to the country club or deep into the Arkansas hinterlands to a catfish place called Spruell’s, that I swear is the best food you’ll ever find in the middle of nowhere. Oh, the slaw. It’s on the way to nothing. You’ll just have to decide that cabbage and catfish and a deep, black pond are worth it, and get yourself there.
How we’d laugh. We in our early twenties, they in their seventies. We partied more with these ladies than anyone else. We would fly through the hot Arkansas night talking about the Razorbacks, the horses, and the next meal. Southerners do that. Plan the next meal while still digesting the last one.
We usually ate lunch at MaryJane’s. Ms. Bostick would fry chicken and slice tomatoes. She’d shell peas and steam rice. There was always a tomato chutney that I need to puzzle over and replicate, and always dessert.
But sometimes we’d pick up the girls and head to Bryce’s Cafeteria in Texarkana.
If the peaches were in, we would for sure.
They have this pie.
A peach cream pie. It’s famous.
Like I said, Matt made it the other night. We used this recipe, and sometimes it’s hard to know what makes something so desirable, the ingredients or the attached memories. Does it even matter, really?
I wish Mary Jane, Wilma, Sis, and Weezie could have tucked under our table. We miss them.
They would certainly agree that it was the best peach pie ever, if only because we were eating it together.
{love your people}
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