So Long, Summer

I hate to see summer leave. It's one of my favorite seasons, filled with freedom, and leisure, and all kinds of delights I wait all year to enjoy.

So I decided to celebrate the end of summer by making a peach cobbler, a treat I always associate with this time of year. I had some fresh peaches I'd bought at a favorite farm stand, and it seemed like a good idea to use them before they morphed into fruit leather. (My fridge is some kind of vampire, sucking out the essence of produce behind closed doors. You should see what it did to some oranges recently. They ended up looking like Yoda. Well, without the big ears. And if Yoda had used an orange-ish spray tan for a week straight.)

But I digress.

Cooking is not a simple thing for me. I may be a pantser when I write, but I don't wing it when it comes to food. It doesn't make sense to experiment with stuff that I plan to eat. There's not really an effective delete key with food either.

Which may be why I love cookbooks. Someone else has already done all the experimentation and come up with the final list of ingredients, in the right measured amounts, and then provided a roadmap that can be followed to a culinary HEA.

After a little online searching, I finally found a peach cobbler recipe that closely matched the ingredients I had on hand. I rejected one candidate because I wasn't about to make a trip to the store for self-rising flour. If I made it to the store, I could just buy ice cream and let the fridge do its dehydration thing on the peaches, and we'd both be sated.

Still, there was a little glitch. I didn't have 4 cups of peaches. I had 2. So I checked to see if I could easily cut the recipe in half, meaning I wouldn't have to do anything fancy with fractions. Whew. Yes, I could cut it in half, without scrambling my brain over a half of a half teaspoon.

Crisis averted.

Another potential issue was when I belatedly realized the peaches were supposed to be mixed in the same pan as the melted butter. The wording of that section of the recipe could use a revision/edit, for clarification purposes, which just goes to show that ALL writing can be improved.

While the oven did its part, I worked on the WIP, feeling productive and virtuous, knowing there was going to be a reward for all my efforts.

At last it was time to sample my culinary masterpiece, and I gobbled it up quickly, with only a smidge left over for today. (It was half a cobbler, if you remember.) It was delicious, evoking memories of summers past, while staving off dread of winters-to-come.

The funny thing is today is dark and dreary and cool and rainy -- as if Mother Nature wanted to reinforce in my mind that summer has been sent packing, thanks to my culinary endeavors, and its evil cousin winter will be swooping down to torment us before we're ready.

But before that happens, I'll have autumn, another one of my favorite seasons, as well as a wonderful array of apples to utilize in the kitchen.

You can bet I'll be rhapsodizing about my favorite apple cake pretty soon.

Unless it provokes winter into showing up early.

Comments

[Kate Warren]

I want to hear about that apple cake! Been looking for an apple cake recipe to love.

I like fall best, myself. It's not blazingly hot, the trees are pretty, the apples are ripe, there's a faint tang of wood smoke in the air after chilly nights. Lovely.

[Quantum]

Wow! That peach cobbler looks delicious. My mouth is watering after just a peep!
How do you weave the lattice of pastry like that?

Its like one of your plots. Artistic, symmetric, thought provoking and .... well perfect. LOL

I had a mouth watering pudding recently. It is dead easy to make and guaranteed to conjure thoughts of summer and hot dreamy romance. Start with a base of strawberries or raspberries then cover with clotted cream with pieces of meringue mixed in. decorate the surface as you will. AND be sure to share it with a loved one!

Summer in England has been a washout .... wettest for many years. Though the thought of autumn colours is inspiring.

You must post some pics of the New England trees when the leaves are turning. *smile*

I also want pics of your apple cake!

[Mae Clair]

You have me thinking about peach cobbler now! I'd have to buy mine though, as I create disaster zones when I attempt to bake. Those around me have been known to flee in terror.

I love autumn too (although I am sad to see summer end. There's a different kind of magic in the air when fall arrives.

Oh, by the way, loved your description of your fridge as a vampire, LOL. I've got one of those too. :)

[Donna Cummings]

Q, I meant to say that was NOT a pic of MY peach cobbler. :) I only wish I could do a lattice like that! My peach cobbler was pretty tasty, mainly because the fresh peaches were so good. LOL

I loved your pudding recipe, but I don't know if we have clotted cream here. I made meringue once (kinda disastrous!) I love your advice to share it with a loved one. I think all food tastes better that way. :)

I will be taking more pics of the autumn trees here, although I hope it won't be very soon. LOL And I'll be happy to post pics of the apple cake. I've made it so many times that I am actually pretty good at it now!

[Donna Cummings]

Kate, I'll email you the link to the recipe. It's from Cooking Light magazine, and I still have the magazine (from 1997!), but it's nice to know the recipe can be found online too. :)

I love fall too. It's actually what seduced me into moving to the East Coast. LOL I just have to block winter from my mind!

[Donna Cummings]

Mae, I'm not much of a cook -- I can keep myself from starving. LOL But I do pretty decently at baking. I think because there's a precise recipe to follow. Of course, I won't mention the "banana bread debacle" that set off both smoke alarms. . .

You're right about a different kind of magic in the air with fall--it always feels a bit melancholy to me.

I'm glad I'm not the only one with a vampire fridge. LOL

[Lutfi]

I have an old heirloom fnrestoee Indian/Cherokee Blood peach tree; it is situated in a narrow area that doesn't receive enough full sun, but still is a very heavy bearer; 2 years ago, even after culling, 4 of the largest limbs broke off when I didn't prop up the limbs in time. Lesson: cull the fruits ruthlessly when they first appear (they tend to clump in groups of 5 or 6) , then have enough tall-enough heavy-duty posts ready to hold up the branches as they grow. This is crucial, as the branches, especially in the older trees, apparently are more fragile than they appear This year, my first crop since the limb-loss, I have picked 2 bushels of fruit from the 3 remaining short limbs. New tall branches are already appearing from the old breaks. It also sprouts readily from the seeds; I gave a foot-tall volunteer sprout to a neighbor 3 years ago, and it is already 12 feet tall and has borne its first fruit this year. Around here, in Sonoma, we treasure these heirloom peaches and , following a friend's practice, am potting 6 seeds to give away next year.You'll never forget your first perfume-y taste of a Cherokee Blood Peach! In my experience, they don't can or freeze particularly well; the unique taste gets lost. I have had great luck, however, in roasting them as you would figs. They're a show-stopper.