A truly ripe peach is a juice bomb. It requires a special, forward-leaning eating position, or else the juice will collide with either your t-shirt, your laptop, or the one important paper on your desk amongst all the other miscellaneous crap. Despite this trickery, a snatched and frenzied slurp-fest can be a real pleasure; un-fussed and fuzzed.

If you find yourself up against a batch that are a bit under-ripe though, this is the recipe for you; they’ll be capable of holding their own in the pan. Grilling also works.

If there’s anything a heap of honeyed peaches is crying out for, it’s a little salty somethin’ somethin’. Two courses of action that will never let you down: pig route, cheese route. Grilled bacon slots in effortlessly like the cool kid at school. A sharp cheese like a feta or goat’s will seem more restrained but delivers similarly satisfying results. S’ up to you.

Pan fried peaches with walnuts and feta

6 slightly under-ripe peaches
Olive oil, for brushing

For the dressing

1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 generous teaspoon honey
2 teaspoons olive oil
1 tablespoon chopped mint
1 teaspoon chilli flakes

Garnish

150g feta cheese
1 large handful of walnuts

Preheat a heavy based frying pan or skillet over a medium heat. Meanwhile, cut the peaches in half and remove the stones. Brush each one generously with olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Place each peach cut side down in the pan and leave until slightly golden. Turn them over carefully and give them a minute or so on the skin side then remove and allow to cool slightly. Once cool enough to handle, cut each half into 4 wedges.

Toast the walnuts by putting them in a dry pan over a fairly low heat and leaving them for a few minutes, moving them around regularly to stop them burning. Remove and set aside.

Make the dressing by mixing all the ingredients together well and seasoning with pepper and just a little salt as the feta is salty. Combine in a bowl with the peaches – gently, to stop them breaking up. Arrange on a plate and garnish with the feta and walnuts. Serve immediately.

My event of the summer. I’ve been to The Jerk Cook Out competition for the past three years and every time it gets bigger and (in most ways) better; so much so in fact that this year it has moved from the gardens of The Horniman Museum, to the larger and much more suitable, Brockwell Park. The Horniman gardens, although lovely, are hilly and the stalls were forced to spread out; you could never really get the measure of the place. Planning your course around multiple jerk stalls is a serious business and one needs to size up the scale of the challenge. You could never do them all though, we’re talking a week’s worth of eatin’ out there.

Jerk chicken, pork belly, fish and crab claws. Rice and peas, plantains and fresh coconut water. Rum. Music. My advice is to get there early (the queues can get a bit silly) and to go seriously hungry, because one plate of jerk is never enough.

When: Sunday 15th August, 12pm-6pm
Where: Brockwell Park, (Dulwich, SE24 9AE)
Cost: Free entry, then you obviously pay for the jerk.