Just peachy

Of all the day-to-day things that I miss about living in Brussels, food is high on my list. (Alright, alright, it's number one.) When I learned that we were moving to Colorado, I consoled myself with the thought that we would have access to wonderful Mexican food and excellent beef. (A friend who ate at one of the few Mexican restaurants in Brussels said that the "salsa" was just ketchup.)

Sixteen months and many failed attempts later, we may have found a good Mexican restaurant, but we want to try it a second time, just to be sure. We have yet to eat beef that tastes as good, in its own beefy way, as chicken from Brussels' ubiquitous rotisserie trucks, below.


So, what do we have that rivals the food we ate in Belgium? Strangely enough in this semi-arid state, it's peaches, specifically peaches grown in Palisades, on the western slopes of Colorado's slice of the Rockies. We buy our peaches by the boxload off a small truck belonging to a small orchard; the owners e-mail their fans to let them know when they will be coming to a certain church parking lot in Arvada. The peach line forms early; the tension about whether there will still peaches left when you reach the front of the line is palpable. (It's sort of like waiting in line for Bruce Springsteen tickets, or, out here, Phish tickets.)

But when you bite into a Palisades peach, you wonder why Eve ever settled for an apple.