Jay and I recently took a four-day trip to visit his parents in SE Arkansas. At the end of this visit we were given a case of peaches that had just been shipped over from Georgia (where a branch office of his parents' business is located).

The peaches were nothing short of delicious. Larger than average, and their fragrance detectible and irresistable clear across the room. And perfectly ripe.

If you know anything about perfectly ripe fruit, you know that also means "about to rot".

Of course, we ate a bunch of them out-of-hand. Delicious, and sweet, and just a touch tart. The way God intended fruit to taste -- and a way that is sadly lacking in today's mass-market, ethelyne-gassed, mega-mart offerings.

But that, of course, didn't even make a dent in the pile.

We also did the "good neighbor" thing and delivered some to our neighbors on either side (each of whom went into mini-orgasms at their aroma).

Now, we had a slight dent in a case of soon-to-be-sludge peaches. Quick action was warranted.

Being a home canner, it was a forgone conclusion that, before the fruit attained sludge status, that I would put the fruit up as either jam or in syrup, but I also wanted to do something else with them while still fresh.

Jay's mom had suggested a peach cobbler, and had provided a recipe, so before firing up the canning kettle, I fished out the recipe she had provided.

It was butt-simple: 4 cups halved or quartered peaches (the size of these warranted quartering), 1/2 stick of butter, 1 cup self-rising flour, 1 cup sugar, 1 cup milk. That's it.

Heat the oven to 400°F. Put the half-stick of butter in an 8x8 Pyrex pan and let it melt in the oven. Mix all but the peaches together in a bowl, and pour the resulting batter into the melted butter. Don't mix! Drop the peaches onto the batter. Don't mix! Bake for 35 minutes. No peeking.

Deleriously delicious!

"So how", you ask, "did you get those nasty peels off the peaches?"

Peeling peaches (or tomatoes, or chile peppers) is actually fairly easy. Boil some water. A lot of water. Drop the peaches (or tomatoes, or chiles) into the water for 60 seconds. Fish them out (an oriental spider works great this) and drop them into an ice-water bath. Rub with paper towels and the skins slide right off.

Removing the pits is easily accomplished with a grapefruit spoon.

The rest of the peaches ended up being canned with a simple syrup. So now, nestled onto the shelves of my pantry, sit three quart jars of preserved and lovely golden goodness.

In your face, Libby!

Originally, I had planned to make some peach jam along with the perserved peaches. But in order to save time, I just went with the simple canning. Why, you ask?

Because my work had just begun. You see, along with the case of Georgia peaches, we were also given two cases of Bradley County tomatoes. Also perfectly ripe and also about-to-turn-to-sludge unless acted upon quickly. But that, as Alton Brown is prone to say, is another show.

For years I denied it. I rationalized. I made excuses. I claimed that the fact that I like beef jerky as much as I like Beef Wellington proved my lack of food snobbery.

I was wrong.

Not all that ironically, the blatant fiction of my claim was driven home to me during an ongoing kitchen renovation project. Perhaps the amount of money that I've dumped, and continue to dump, into making my kitchen completely splendid should have been a clue.

Up until the current project, all the kitchen renovations — replacing the applicances, texturing and painting the walls, installing a vent, installing better lighting, putting in a Saltillo tile floor, and so on — either did not interrupt the use of the kitchen or were of such short duration not to introduce any problems with meal preparation.

That all changed this time.

I recently received a bonus. Not a big one mind you; but a bonus nevertheless. And even though I have a slew of bills that would have been better off paid, it was a bonus, dammit, and I was going to do something I really wanted with it! That meant new countertops! And a new sink. Which required a new faucet.

And since we're cheap and relatively handy, we do as much of the work ourselves as possible. We had done all the texturing and painting. We had installed the tile floor (a project that well could have been the subject of its own jocular blog). We changed out the lighting. So naturally, we decided that we didn't need to pay someone to do any work that we could do; such as tearing out the old countertops.

Doing the work ourselves does save us money. What it does not do, is make sure that the project gets done quickly.

So out came the old countertops. And the hideous composite-plastic-stain-if-you-just-look-at-it sink that I loathed (along with its equally loathsome faucet). Oh, and of course, that meant the cooktop needed to be removed.

Needless to say, no meal preparation occurred during the interval between removal and installation. And since the whole point of the exercise in the first place was to save money, eating out while the kitchen was in a shambles wasn't an option.

What to do? What to do?

I turned to the microwave oven for salvation.

There is an asile at the grocery store. An aisle lined with frosted glass doors. Behind the doors, for the entire length of this aisle on either side, are row upon row of colurful boxes. Each box sports a photo. A photo of a tantalizingly declicious-looking plate of food. For years, I had walked quickly through this aisle looking neither right nor left; paying no heed to the colorful boxes and their siren song of Delicious and Convenient Meal in a Box.

But now I stopped. I looked. I peered through the frost at the pretty pictures on the festive boxes. I scutinized. I gauged. I pondered.

I concluded. And what I concluded was that few of the cheery, perky boxes held enough food for a meal for either myself or my room-mate. We are, after all, less-than-picky eaters, and have the jean sizes to prove it.

Then I saw them. Big boxes. With a big name like Hungry Man. Showing big portions. Just what I was after: Big Food.

So I opened the frosty glass doors and reached inside. The gala pictures and bold titles beckoned me. Buffalo Chicken. Hearty Meat Loaf. Turkey with Dressing. Beef Stew. Bar-b-que Ribs. And a whole host of other enticing combinations. I grabbed armfuls of the cold, icy boxes and put them into my cart.

For a moment I felt fear. Had anyone seen me? Would they point and stare? And then I realized that fellow shoppers were also loading the chilled, colorful boxes into their carts. I was safe. I would just blend in. No one would ever know.

Those that have also partaken of the icy, vibrant boxes know what ensued.

The contents of the boxes, to my amazement, bear no relationship to the glistening, mouth-watering pictures on the outside. They lie. They speak falsehoods. In the box is a plastic tray divided into oddly-shaped compartments. Each compartment contains blocks of frozen, unidentifiable items.

Perhaps, I thought, that the magical microwaves of the oven would have marvelous and restorative powers. I read the back of the boxes and followed the instructions. Then came the realization.

The contents of the box is a combination of textures. Most flavorless. Some colorless. All inedible. Well, not all. When a brownie was included in one of the black plastic compartments, it was actually moist, and chewy and flavorful. The remainder of the unidentifiable chunks of texture were not.

Calling upon my knowledge of all things culinary, I mused 'How on Earth can one actually expect disparate items such as meat (or what I think was meant to be meat), potaotes or french fries, sauces, and vegetables (and don't forget the brownie) to bask at the same (high) temperature, for the same amount of time, and cook into something even remotely edible?'

Apparently, the perpetrators of the devious boxes had optimized for the brownie. After all, it's the last thing to be eaten. Perhaps they figured that, if the last thing eaten out of the oddly-shaped black plastic compartments was a yummy brownie, everyone would forget how horrid and inedible the preceding so-called meal had been and actually buy it again. Or not just throw away the remainder of the gaily decorated frosty boxes?

So, despite the fact that, judging from how much space the alluring boxes take up in the store, millions of my fellow citizens subsist on a daily basis upon the contents of the deceitful, unscrupulous boxes, I would rather eat my room-mate's cooking (shudder), than face another such meal.

Which can lead to only one conclusion: I am a food snob. The occasional corn dog cannot contradict that conclusion. I must look in the mirror, stare into my own eyes and say it: "I am a food snob".

And I don't care if there is a 12-Step Program or not. I have learned to accept myself as I am.

Oh and the thing about the beef jerky? A friend pointed out that the fact that I insist on making it myself makes specious any claim that that lent credence to my denial of food snobbery.

And dinner tonight is Chicken Piccatta. With real chicken. And real lemons. And fragrant capers. And fresh parsely. Oh, the joy!