Holy hell.
My cousin Julia is kind of a crafty rockstar. A vegan-treat-baking, clothes-making, jam-canning, hat-knitting, paper-sewing, vintage-photo-taking crafty rockstar. Besides all that, she has a penchant for buying huge flats of summer fruits, or picking them from generous neighbors with fruit trees, and then finding a million resourceful uses for the fruit. (Sidebar to my neighbors: please get an apricot tree and then neglect to pick it, 'kay thanks.)
Stef, being adorable as usual.This weekend I took a page out of her book. Adam and Stefanie and I had a lovely summer day consisting of a hike, a dip in a cold swimming hole, a wickedly delicious pulled-pork sandwich, wine tasting at a Virginia winery, and a trip to a pick-your-own-peaches orchard.
Can't you just smell the sweetness?We each took an empty bag (a peck... I had always wondered what a peck was) and headed up to the top of the orchard, above the apples, to the peach trees. Amidst the sweetly scented air, we filled our bags and ate some peaches along the way, and let me tell you something -- these are possibly the best peaches I've EVER HAD.
Adam carries our heavy bounty back to the car.Well... two-thirds of our bounty.
And it's a damn good thing these are the best peaches I've ever had. Because, well, three pecks add up, and when we got home we realized we had brought home approximately 35 pounds of peaches. And now it's a race against time to eat them or bake with them before they go bad.
Makes me hope summer will never end!Today's 100° weather plus humidity, not so much.
Peaches (and apricots) used to be my favorite fruit, but they've faded in the past few years in favor of cherries and mangoes, and on Saturday I realized why. It's because the peaches in the supermarkets here are, well, crap.
The little sweeties get a bath.The peaches we picked from this orchard taste like sweet summer, absolute perfection. I've rekindled my love affair. So stay tuned this week to see what we're doing with all these lovelies!
Swoon.
3 comments:
yay!! i'm so glad i'm bringing you and em over to the dark side (and by dark, i mean delicious!). what are you going to do with them?? i think you should can them in syrup. don't be scared of the canning- it's not nearly as hard as it looks. or, you can always just slice and freeze them. that's easy. can't wait to see, or maybe taste some...
ps: if you do end up canning them, you know i'll trade you some jam for a jar :)
Ooh, I think it might be fun to make a peach chutney or salsa with them! No? And there's always cobbler and jam :)
I'd love to come over and taste one!
Since Saturday I've already done daiquiris, scones, and jam (stay tuned for related posts), as well as we've scarfed quite a few plain. I have pie (WOO I LOVE PIE!) and also salsa in the works, although I'm intrigued by the canning idea.
It sounds complicated... Julia, I'm going to email you about it.
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