California's Best Fruit, and What to Make With It

We're all about collections over at Provisions -- and we don't want you to miss out on the fun.

Today: Your doctor called; you should be eating more stone fruit.

Fruit is one of summer’s best perks. A bite of a ripe peach or a tart-skinned plum is a perfect pick-me-up on long, hot days. Peach juices run down your chin; dark sweet cherries stain your fingertips. They overflow at farmers market tables and beg to be collected and turned into pies, cobblers, and smoothies.

As perfect as a good piece of summer fruit is, a bad one is equally disappointing: Biting into a mealy apricot is enough to ruin any sunny day.

That is why our fruit in today's Provisions collection comes specifically from Frog Hollow Farm, a 143-acre organic farm in Brentwood, California. Each piece of Frog Hollow fruit -- whether a classic nectarine or a hybrid pluot -- is big, flavorful, and hand-picked, so you'll never be disappointed. If you’re wondering why you’d go out of your way to order California fruit by mail instead of heading over to your local market, the proof is in the peach.

When you get your hands on some of their fruit, nothing beats eating it straight, but there's also so much more you can do. Here are a few other ways to start -- and end -- your day with stone fruit:

1. Fold sliced ripe apricots into yogurt and top with granola.

2. Freeze a bag of cherries until semi-frozen. Put them into a glass of soda water; drink, eat, enjoy.

3. Use every scrap -- you can even turn cherry pits into frozen yogurt!

4. Three words: cream, nectarines, sugar.

Since we're on team pie, we'll be baking stone fruit in our all-time favorite pie plate all summer long. What is your favorite stone fruit recipe?

Photos by James Ransom