In Praise of the Donut Peach and other Ephemeral Delights

In our continuing exploration of the Garden State, we visited our favorite local orchard, Strawberry Hill (peaches, nectarines and apples, no strawberries.) We came early because Ross is often “picked out”.


 

The variety on offer today was the Donut Peach, donut shaped morsels of pure sugary goodness. Donut Peaches don’t last very long –- not in orchard, not in the basket and certainly not in a crispy cobbler. We found a few ready to sample. (No pictures today. The usual excuse, the resident photographer was all sticky…)  We brought home 20# to ripen and counted ourselves fortunate.  This family place was immaculately groomed, friendly and well organized.  A much longer stay here in the land of Grand Boy may be necessary to sample ALL the varieties, but our hostess may run out of projects for us before then.
Another day, another magical berry patch.  Joanie already had a good supply of blueberries from Embry’s and created a five star cobbler last night.


Today we were in search of PIE and no one, I Say NO ONE, does fruit pie better than Embry’s.  We scored a Trifecta (blueberries, cherries and Peaches still firm in their heavenly combination) AND a Peach pie to take on the road.

 

 

Embry’s has lots more than blueberries and Pies to delight.

Then off for the Brown Eggs “ at the place where they keep them refrigerated” on a wagon in the back yard with an Honor System change box. 


We tried for the temporarily rare Jersey Tomatoes (weather) and struck out at a roadside place where local thuggery has made made these warnings necessary.

 


But Wait.  OLD YORK FARM at Reckless Road and York has a wagon we have shopped many times before, but this time we were honored to meet the owners.   
Herb and Karina call themselves   “Sundown Farmers”. 














Both are employed full time and farm from dawn to work time and often into the night (by headlight) after work.  They had the best tomatoes we have found,  a good variety of other veggies and a genuine down home friendly approach.  We enjoyed hearing their stories and especially their generous good spirits. 







Gary was nearby offering business advice; They refer to him as the Zen Master.  Gary has been known to grow a LITTLE corn.  We find later that he is locally famous for his Sweet Corn Farm and equally praised for his generosity. 
Thanks to our new friends for capping our day with kindness. 
And now we return you to our regular (4-5 times annual) Chesterfield Volunteer Fire Chicken Bar B Que where Tim, our vegetarian Son-in-law, manfully rips chicken asunder and fires it in a 40’ long pit.  When he returns, a really hopeful dog follows him around even more closely than usual.
 
“I think he misses me…” 

The carnivores appreciated the crispy chicken (No Pictures.  Yeah, …sticky…)  and are looking forward to the evening’s PIE.