Stuffed Peaches / Pesche Ripieni

A few years ago my husband and I visited “his side” of the family in Benevento. We had been staying at the Bellevue Syrene in Sorrento, so the Esposito family sent their oldest son, Michele, to make the three-hour drive to pick us up.

As we returned to Benevento, I tried to make polite conversation in Italian. It was an exhausting mental exercise, to think first of all of what to say and then how to say it in grammatically correct Italian.

Guy, my husband, sat in the back seat, smiling and nodding his approval. It seemed the whole town knew we were coming. After a rousing greeting of benvenuti, we were ushered into the summer kitchen where mangia, mangia was the phrase of the day. The dinner was just what I expected, from antipasto to biscotti, but I particularly remember the fresh peaches with amaretti cookies for dessert: What a simple idea, yet what an unusual taste.

SERVES 6

As seen in Program 1825