Eat a peach, Asheville

ASHEVILLE – Along with tomatoes and corn, peaches rank high on the list of most-coveted summer foods. Even those who rarely set foot in a farmers market are likely to be drawn by the prospect of buying a bushel of the fragrant, fuzzy fruit.

How about the thought of a still-warm cobbler with vanilla ice cream mingling with the syrup as it melts? See WNC Parent editor Katie Wadington's cobbler recipe and peach-buying tips (at the end of this story).

The WNC Farmers Market (570 Brevard Road) is bursting with peaches these days, though plenty come from out of state. There's no shame in that, but plenty of local orchards grow peaches, too, even though we have precious few streets names after the sweet fruit for which Georgia is known.

Molly Nicholie, of the Appalachian Sustainable Agriculture Project said even though our area is best known for berries and apples, local orchards also bear plenty of peaches and plums.

"South Carolina's heat helps with the sweetness, but it's not that much hotter," she said, adding that ASAP's Local Food Guide lists a large number of local farms growing peaches.

"Even though it's more traditionally South Carolina or Georgia folks, we do get some around here," she said. "Henderson County is a big supplier."

Local restaurants are incorporating peaches into a number of dishes, including Seven Sows Bourbon and Larder, which has a composed peach and cucumber salad on the menu (77 Biltmore Ave.). The Hop Ice Cream Cafe makes a fairly traditional peach ice cream and a concoction called Southern Comfort (721 Haywood Road/640 Merrimon Ave.).

The Southern Comfort is "peaches cooked down in bourbon for a long time, and then we take that whole mess and throw it into the ice cream," said Greg Garrison, who owns both North Asheville and West Asheville locations with his wife, Ashley. "It's hard to generate the peach flavor people are looking for, so this is the route we took."

Bourbon and peaches play well together, Garrison said. "It adds the sugar we need to keep it from getting icy and enhances the flavor," he said.

Teetotaler? Have no fear. "The alcohol's been cooked out," he said. "We make a White Russian with alcohol in it, but people would get sick on the ice cream before getting drunk off of it."

Garrison said The Hop sources peaches from Farside Farms in North Asheville when they're available later in the season. Earlier on in the summer, he goes for Georgia peaches. "We also go for the South Carolina ones when they're available because they're closer," he said.

The Hop plays with a huge amount of summer fruit, and recently purchased 18 gallons of blueberries, blackberries and red raspberries from Stepp Plants, which will go into raspberry-habanero and blueberry-chevre ice cream flavors.

According to Garrison, the bad winter weather has driven up the price of peaches.

"A lot of South Carolina farms have lost a lot of their crops, which has made it more expensive," he said. "We haven't see anything comparable to what we have seen in the past."

Locally, Dawn Creasman of Creasman Farms said the weather did hurt her orchards a bit, but she still has local peaches available at the Asheville City Market and Black Mountain Tailgate Market (both on Saturday), as well as the new River Arts District Tailgate Market on Wednesday.

"We had a cold spring that kind of nipped them a little bit, so that makes the crop a little lighter," she said.

Besides the markets, Creaseman said she also sells her peaches to All Souls Pizza, The Southern Kitchen and Bar, and Mountain Man Preserves.

If local restaurants and tailgate markets aren't quite enough to fix your peach cravings, there's also the South Carolina Peach Festival, an annual event in July in celebration of the peak month for peach production in South Carolina. The festival starts Thursday in Gaffney, South Carolina, which is just a bit less than an hour and a half from Asheville. More at http://scpeachfestival.net.

KITTY HAWK PEACH COBBLER SPARKS MEMORIES

When I was growing up, my family vacationed for years in Kitty Hawk. One of my best memories of those trips was enjoying peach cobbler at the beach.

We didn't get many delicious peaches in northeastern Ohio, so we looked forward to our trips to North Carolina, where we'd buy a basket of peaches from a roadside stand as we approached the Outer Banks.

My Grandma Lauer turned those peaches into the most divine cobbler. I make her recipe still today. It may be the most forgiving recipe on the planet.

• If your peaches aren't peeling easily, score an X on the end and drop into boiling water for about 20 seconds. Then plunge into cold water. After the peaches cool a few minutes, the peel will come right off.

• The recipe is very easily halved, just use an 8-by-8 pan.

• Use any variety of milk (skim to whole to lactose-free to soy)

• Don't have fresh peaches? Use frozen. Thaw first and drain some of the liquid off. Frozen peaches will make a juicier cobbler, so I add a bit of cornstarch or King Arthur Flour's Instant Clearjel to thicken.

14 medium peaches (more if small), sliced

Almost 1 cup sugar

4 tablespoons all-purpose flour

Topping:

3 cups Bisquik (regular or low-fat)

Heaping 1/4 cup of sugar

1/4 cup butter or margarine, melted

1 cup milk

Preheat oven to 400. Place peaches in a medium bowl. Mix flour and sugar, then stir into peaches. Pour peaches into a 9-by-13 pan. Sprinkle 1/2 teaspoon of salt over peaches.

Mix Bisquik and sugar together with a fork. Stir in melted butter. Add milk slowly, incorporating with a fork until blended but lumpy. Drop batter onto peaches and use a spoon to even out.

Bake 15 minutes at 400, then drop temperature to 325 and bake an additional 20-25 minutes until golden brown and topping has baked.

Katie Wadington,

kwadington@citizen-times.com