Delaware

"August is the best month for eating in Delaware"

My sister and I enjoyed a weekend with the best this cozy state has to offer: politics and peaches.

The state was buzzing the morning after we arrived with the news that Obama announced Joe Biden as his running mate as we made our rounds to the local farmers markets. At the upscale, established Fifer Orchards in Camden we bought everything from wasabi and sesame infused oil, to peach ice cream made from the fresh produce of their orchards. Even though it was a chic foodie establishment, I was relieved that prices had not caught up with those in New York.

Down the road we stopped in an Amish food emporium. Their barbecue smelled tempting, but remembering our imminent dinner plans, we satisfied our cravings with dill-laced havarti and an herb-infused baguette instead.

Staying with our old family friends, Chuck and Jeanine, we talked Delaware state politics (with which Jeanine is involved) while eating freshly steamed corn on the cob, tomato and lettuce salad with a lemon vinaigrette, and barbecued chicken. As Jeanine pointed out, all the produce had never seen the inside of a refrigerator. Dessert was a dense and egg-y chocolate cake she made the day before with an icing that evaporated like cotton candy in our mouths, leaving only molecules of dark chocolate on our tongues. We washed it down with bellinis made from whizzed up peaches and dry prosecco. Breakfast the next morning was waffles with ripe Delaware peaches and blueberries. On our ride home we munched tomatoes picked from a friend's garden, sprinkled with a few crystals of gray salt.

Bliss.