Peaches on my mind

I had the pleasure of working our market booth with Sally DeCardy last Thursday. For the last four markets of the season, the market is located on the strip now between the Community Center and the ball fields, and this is my favorite part of the market season. Perhaps because the booths are a bit closer together, our neighbors are shopping nearly tush-to-tush, and warm conversations and greetings abound. Not to mention that September is really our bounty time, our abun-dance! But back to Sally. So many silly things happened while we worked the booth, from keeping the band and the story-teller mollified with sharing space and time (again, abundance), to running out of our fantastic “Beet the System” t-shirts in sizes that suit anyone (we are still prepared for the very large and very small), that we hardly got to talk about what we really wanted to: oh, how to take advantage of the late-season peaches, strawberries, heart-shaped plums — I thought we would have to eat them immediately!

Sally, it turns out, is a true peach. Aficionado. A peach-preserving aficionado. And by the end of our fragmented conversation on this topic, she had persuaded me to buy a case and put them up. She gave me these instructions when I told her that I am not a fan of cooked peaches, only fresh. These tips help you have “like fresh” peaches until your freezer is empty.

So, after a committee meeting that ran until near midnight, I came home and did just what she said:

Put a big pot of water on to boil and sink a colander down into it. (Or be prepared to lift them out in batches with a slotted spoon or wire dipper). Once it boils, put the whole peaches down into the colander (as many as will fit and be immersed in the water) but only for TEN SECONDS! Bring out the colander and gently pour the peaches into a big bowl of ice water. Start another batch of peaches on a TEN SECOND boil, remove the first batch from the ice water to a cutting board and repeat until your entire kitchen counter area is covered in peaches ready to be skinned.

Now, for this skinning part, I am sure Sally said something like “it’s like peeling off a pair of pantyhose” and many readers have perhaps never had the pleasure of peeling off a pair of panty hose. But the skin will happily come away (unlike what I seem to remember about trying to get out of those torture devices so many years ago).

Once all the skin is off, cut the peaches as big or small as you like, being sure to remove the pit and anything else you don’t want to eat later, and then stuff it all into Ziploc bags or other freezer containers (Sally recommends small bags or containers because when you defrost, you want to use it all very quickly, so pack some small bags for pieces to put in your yogurt and some larger bags to make pies, tarts, jam or salsa batches). I seem to remember Sally saying something about how several days after defrosting it all looks like soggy paper bags or something, so be prepared to quickly use up what you defrost.

Voila, another beautiful bounty “put up” to share with and dazzle friends as the winter months approach. Here’s what my kitchen looked like at about 12:30 AM. Move over, Barbara Kingsolver!