Donut Peaches & Bacon

We're in the midst of peach season, but it wasn't until this last weekend that I saw these scrumptious gems:



I love peaches in general, but white-fleshed ones are my favorite, and of those, nothing tops the donut, or Saturn, peach. Peaches are native to China, and the "flat peach" is no exception -- but lucky for me, they're commercially grown in Central California and Washington. Though they aren't a new fruit, I didn't have one, or even know of their existence, until a few summers ago when I sampled one at Pike Place Market. I was, needless to say, blown away by their deliciousness!

If you've never had one, you're missing out. Donut peaches have very little fuzz, with tender white flesh that is unbelievably sweet, due to being low in acid. They can be quite small -- in fact, until I found these this weekend, I had never seen them this large.



For dinner tonight I used some leftover ingredients to make a shrimp and mushroom egg white omelette topped with cheese. I should have taken the time to pre-sauté the mushrooms, as the omelette came out a bit watery (but good nonetheless).

I also fried up a slice --cut in half -- of the bacon from Wooly Pigs, which was delicious. (Warning: Gratuitous bacon shot below.)



I was a little bit perturbed by how much bacon grease resulted from that one slice of bacon, but thrilled at the same time. I know, I'm such a contradictory person. It certainly didn't stop me from getting out a new jar in order to save the drippings (I have another jar of bacon drippings from "normal" bacon; I wanted to have a separate jar for the Wooly Pigs bacon). For those of you who read my blog post about lard and might be wondering, bacon drippings do not fall into the category of "the good kind of lard," as it is typically cured using sodium nitrate, which has been linked to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. "Uncured" bacon is available (Trader Joe's has a very good one), but the reason that's in quotes is because it just means the bacon hasn't been cured in the traditional way using added sodium nitrate, and is instead cured with some combination of salt, lactic acid starter culture and celery juice, which has natural sodium nitrate. >.> Yeah. So, it's kinda sorta the same thing. Totally uncured bacon would actually be called pork belly, which is delicious in Korean BBQ. But that's another subject.

Okay, pork obsession aside. Back to the matter at hand: tonight's dinner. I finished off with a juicy, sweet donut peach that was perfectly ripe. That leaves me with 3 to devour in the coming days. I have to say, I'm not a hater of cooked fruit; in fact, I quite like it depending on the dessert, but a donut peach should never, ever be cooked. That would be a damn waste.