Every December, the stone fruit hits and suddenly everyone becomes a pavlova person. Fair enough. But there’s so much more you can do with Australian summer stone fruit once you stop treating it as a garnish.

Let me walk you through what’s good right now, how to pick it, and what to cook when you’ve inevitably bought too much at the farmers market.

What’s in season right now

By mid-December, we’re hitting peak season for early peaches, nectarines, and apricots. Cherries are already flying off shelves (and they should be — the Yarra Valley crop this year is outstanding). Plums are starting to show up but won’t peak until January.

The thing most people get wrong is buying stone fruit too early in the season. Those hard, pale peaches in November? They were picked green and they’ll never ripen properly. Wait for the real ones.

How to actually pick good stone fruit

Forget what it looks like. Smell it. Good stone fruit smells like what it is. If a peach doesn’t smell like a peach at the shop, it won’t taste like one at home.

A few other things to check:

• Weight matters. Heavier fruit has more juice. Pick it up.
• Slight give. You want a gentle yield when you press near the stem, not mush.
• Colour is secondary. Red doesn’t mean ripe. Some of the best white peaches barely blush at all.
• Buy local when you can. Victorian and South Australian fruit picked ripe beats imported anything.

Storage: the counter or the fridge?

Here’s the rule I follow: counter until ripe, fridge once it’s there. Stone fruit ripens at room temperature just fine. Putting unripe fruit in the fridge stops the ripening process and gives you that mealy texture nobody wants.

Once it’s ripe — soft, fragrant, ready — move it to the fridge. It’ll keep another three to four days.

One trick that actually works: put unripe fruit in a paper bag with a banana. The ethylene from the banana speeds up ripening by a day or two.

Five things to cook right now

1. Grilled peaches with ricotta and honey

Cut peaches in half, brush with a little olive oil, and grill cut-side down for three minutes. Serve with good ricotta, a drizzle of honey, and some torn basil. This is a five-minute dessert that looks like you tried hard.

2. Nectarine and tomato salad

This sounds odd until you eat it. Slice ripe nectarines and heirloom tomatoes, layer them on a plate, add torn mozzarella, good olive oil, flaky salt, and a splash of white wine vinegar. Summer on a plate.

3. Apricot chutney

If your apricots are slightly past their prime, chutney is the move. Cook them down with onion, ginger, apple cider vinegar, brown sugar, and a pinch of chilli. Twenty minutes, and you’ve got something that makes cheese boards sing for weeks.

4. Cherry clafoutis

Traditional French recipe, dead simple. Blend eggs, sugar, flour, milk, and vanilla, pour it over pitted cherries in a buttered dish, and bake at 180C for 35 minutes. Custardy, fruity, impressive with almost no effort.

5. Plum and almond cake

Once the plums arrive in January, make this: a basic almond cake batter with halved plums pressed into the top. The plums collapse as they bake, creating these gorgeous jammy pockets. Dust with icing sugar and serve warm.

The bigger picture

Here’s something worth thinking about: Australian stone fruit growers are facing serious labour shortages and rising water costs. The Murray-Darling situation hasn’t gotten better. When you buy Australian stone fruit at the farmers market instead of the supermarket, more of that money reaches the people who grew it.

I’m not saying every peach purchase needs to be a political act. But knowing where your food comes from changes how you cook with it. You waste less. You appreciate it more.

Summer stone fruit season is short. Make the most of it while it’s here.