This is I know a recipe totally inappropiate to this time of year but as the cold hits in I just want to give myself a breath of the warm south.

One of the first things I do as soon as I get to a French market, or supermarket, in the summer is to buy some white peaches.
As soon as I have them I will try to, surreptitiously, smell them.
I am always brought back to the greenhouse in Tree Tops the house where I was born and raised.
We were lucky enough to have been brought up in a house in suburban Cork which had a very large fruit and vegetable garden and these fruits and vegetables were my mother’s pride and joy.
Every summer the greenhouse produced a crop of white peaches.These, unlike the yellow peach, do not grow outdoors in Ireland so weren’t common.
They have a wonderful evocative smell in the way a lychee or a melon has but it isn’t really like either.
Next time you see a ripe one for sale buy it, they are I promise quite different to the yellow variety.
The other crop which my mother grew in the green house, and these she sold, were tomatoes. Now everyone knows the wonderful sweet musky smell you get from tomatoes on the vine.This combination of perfumes made the green house a wonderful bath of peach and tomato scents, bottled it would certainly have outsold anything Chanel could have blended.
A couple of years ago I came across a Salad Composee of Nectarines and Tomatoes.
These surprising ingredients worked so well together I put it on the menu as a starter in the restaurant and that it sold well would be obvious from the fact that it became a summer standard.
It took me until this summer though before the penny dropped and I decided to put together the tastes and smells of my mother’s greenhouse.
Freshly made with fruits made sweet in southern sunshine it is very close to perfection.

Tomato and White Peach Salad
(for 4 Salads)

6 Ripe White Peaches
6 Large Ripe Vine Tomatoes
1 Tablespoon Balsamic Vinegar
4 Tablespoons Olive Oil
Good Pinch Sugar
Salt and grinding of Pepper.
12 fresh Basil leaves roughly chopped
Peel the peaches (if necessary loosen the skins by briefly plunging into first boiling then immediately into cold water) and slice in wedges against the stone then slice the tomatoes in similar shaped wedges.
Alternating the two fruits, arrange in overlapping circles on 4 plates.
Dress each one on its plate by sprinkling over the oil, vinegar sugar and pepper and lastly the Basil.

White Peaches and Vanilla Fromage Blanc for breakfast.
Another marriage made in heaven.