A basket of fruit has been sitting on the kitchen counter for a couple days, and everything is beautifully ripe. The nectarines looked so good I was going to snag one then and there for myself, but I stopped realizing it wasn't cold. It struck me funny that I didn't want to eat a room temperature nectarine, then I remembered something...
Every summer until I was seven years old my family would spend two weeks at a campground called Fish Creek in upstate New York. We would load up the station wagon with all the camping gear...sleeping bags, tent, suitcases and food. We kept the coolers in a handy location so we could access the goodies therein from the road. Mom would load them up with supplies for the first few days of our trip, hard-sided and heavy items on the bottom, ice on top of those, then nestled into the ice on the very top, fresh peaches, nectarines and plums. I totally flash on the car ride up to Fish Creek every time I eat a nectarine...and because they were sitting in ice, they were always very cold. And that, friends, is why I like my nectarines cold.
See how powerful food associations are?
Personally, nectarines and peaches are my favorite summer fruits. A perfect nectarine beats pretty much everything else by a long, long way, but I find that a "just okay" peach is better than a "just okay" nectarine.
Although I don't mind if they're room temperature =)