Stone Fruits

HOW CAN ONE EVER FORGET BITING INTO A peach so juicy you have to suck in as you bite just to keep it from flowing down your chin? Stone fruits at the height of their seasons—plump peaches and nectarines, delicate apricots, crisp cherries, tart-skinned and sweet-fleshed plums—lead one to rhapsodize and swoon. And some recent additions to the food world—incredible hybrids such as pluots, plumcots, apruims, and nectaplums—all combine the best trait of one stone fruit with a complementary aspect of another.