Well thats just peachy

There are more things to love about summer in Toronto than I can name atm, but two of my absolute favorite harbingers of the dog days of summer are cherries and peaches.
Oh I hear my friends on the left coast yelling about the superior quality of their fruit. Im not denying that. But I will also stand by Ontarios produce.



♪Good things gro-oo-oow in On-Tar-i-ooo♪

Hahah remember hat annoying commercial? Of course you do, I have a friend who would acutally get visibly angry when it appeared, seemingly every commercial break, on Tv , a while back. Hahaha

So, I picked up a couple of Ontario peaches at the corner store. Now gentle readers, I live in the very heart of the gayest neighborhood in the entire country, so you must know my corner store is better then yours :) OK, calm down, I kid..but really there's exotic fruit ( the produce not the customers) a wide range of cheeses,beautiful flowers and croissants baked daily, you get the picture. OMG The chocolate selection!!! I ll save that for another blog....

OK, so I get home and decide to have these peaches with my beloved Liberte Greek plain yogurt. Sounds like nothing, right?

Wrong.

I may still be quivering from sheer unmitigated joy...Sers, how can something so sinfully good, not be bad for you. I swear this is unprecedented. A satisfying sweet creamy decadent snack that is not only NOT bad for you...it is actually GOOD for you. I want to weep.

I thought tonight I"d drill down about into the peach, figuratively, I ate all the ones I had on hand :) Even when I was a pastry chef at the distillery, when I asked the sous chef in charge of ordering, to get me, specifically "Freestone" peaches, he grumbled something ordered just peaches and got me baskets of unusable product. When I went to him to complain and ask what was up, he said he just asked for peaches, he didnt know there was any difference.

Well there is a difference, a great deal of difference as a matter of fact
( and that's why I was so specific in the first place, but hard to be a blond in the kitchen sometimes, but that's another story for another day! )

Its quite literal and so, not hard to get...

Freestone: 

The flesh comes easily away from the pit, making these the perfect peaches for eating out of hand. They are not quite as juicy as clingstones. But eh easiest to use for baking imho.  They arrive later in the season, about mid-August and stay until the end of September.

Clingstone: 

The flesh clings firmly to the pit, or stone. They are soft in texture and very juicy. Fabulous for baking and for making jams and jellies, they are worth the work if you have the patience. These are the peaches that find their way into cans.




Besides those, there are yellow- and white-fleshed peaches.

Yellow-fleshed peaches are deeply coloured on the inside. They are sweet, but also slightly tangy in taste.

White-fleshed peaches, which are sorta trendy right now, are pale-coloured and super sweet, with lower acidity levels than yellow peaches. And their flesh is smoother-textured, almost creamy.

Among the craziest-looking of the white-fleshed peaches are the small, saucer peaches that look like squashed doughnuts. Very popular in France, where they are called pêches plates.

They are super-sweet, with floral aromas and a hint of honey flavour. Their skin is fuzz-free and feels like velvet. I think I have seen these kicking around being called Donut Peaches..you gotta love marketing for the status quo ( which seems always rather low)
But I digress....

I am awaiting the return of someone dear and I have decided to make a peach pie for his return, solely based on the exquisite nature of this seasons crop. Ill keep you posted  :)