Playing with My Food: The Memphis Farmers’ Market

Part 1: Peaches

On Saturday morning, despite his better judgment (and with promises of a nap later), I drug EAToo out of bed and downtown to the Memphis Farmers’ Market. Just a couple of blocks from the Mississippi River, the Memphis Farmers’ Market is a bit of a drive from the suburbs, but it’s worth the trip. Located at the old Central Station pavilion on Front Street, the MFM is open from April through October, and offers entertainment and family activities in addition to the opportunity to meet and buy food from local growers. They also sponsor events out in the community, such as their Dinner Tour this summer (the next one is at Restaurant Iris this summer.

We arrived at the MFM around 9:00 a.m. — not as early as I had hoped, considering it opens at 7:00 a.m. — but it was still fairly cool and pleasant for a July morning in Memphis, owing to the clouds that were threatening rain. My main intentions were to buy peaches and cucumbers, before heading to breakfast at Café Ecletic (more about that another time). I had bought both items a few weeks before, but had not gotten around to using the produce due to a rather unfortunate incident involving my (now former) car and a light pole on I-240.

I did get my peaches (purchased from the lovely folks at Jones Orchard) and some lovely pickling cucumbers (from the Ly Vu family farm). After some discussion, and a promise from EAToo that he would help me keep it alive, we also bought a basil plant. Our final stop (which required very little discussion) was at Bun in the Oven bakery and catering, for the best carmelitas I have ever had. (Sorry, Mom.)

Saturday afternoon, I began my first project, a peach cobbler. Since I hadn’t made a cobbler in years, I did a bit of recipe research online, but couldn’t find a cobbler recipe that sounded right to me. I finally gave up and went with my old standby, the Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook. (A wedding gift in 1993, mine is the updated version of my mother’s BH&G, which I used to read over and over as a child, the way normal kids would have read a favorite storybook.) It’s a great starting place for just about anything I want to cook, and very useful for conversions, ingredient substitutions, etc. However, as always, I couldn’t help but going off book a bit. Here’s the recipe as I actually ended up making it:

Peach Cobbler

EA’s Peach Cobbler
(as adapted from Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook)

Ingredients for filling:

4 c. sliced peaches (about 8 or 9 medium peaches)
1 c. sugar
1 tbsp. corn starch
1/4 c. water

Preheat oven to 400°. Peel and slice peaches into a 2-quart baking dish. (I suggest doing your peeling and slicing over your baking dish, so as not to lose any juice.) In a separate bowl, mix the sugar, corn starch, and water to form a slurry. Stir the slurry into the peaches. After the oven has fully preheated, go ahead and place the baking dish into the oven to allow the filling to cook a bit while you make the dough for the topping.

Ingredients for topping:

1 1/2 c. all-purpose flour
1/2 c. sugar
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
5 tbsp. butter
2 eggs, beaten
1/4 to 1/2 c. milk, as needed

Combine flour, sugar, and baking powder. Cut in butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. In a separate bowl, combine eggs and ¼ cup milk. Stir into flour mixture until just moist. Add milk as needed until dough is completely moist and a workable consistency. Drop topping dough by spoonfuls onto hot filling. Spread to cover — the crust won’t spead much as it bakes. Bake for 20-25 minutes, or until toothpick in center comes out clean.

The cobbler turned out pretty well, although I really think it needed more sugar (I added more in the recipe above). The BFFs definitely seemed to enjoy it, and didn’t force me to take the leftovers home with me, which I think is a good sign.

My project Sunday afternoon was to use at least some of the remaining peaches for ice cream. This time, I did go with an internet recipe that I found on AllRecipes.com. After much looking around, I went with this recipe. Yes, I know. It calls for eggs, and yet the custard isn’t ever cooked. But EAToo and I weren’t scared, and you shouldn’t be, either. (It’s not that I laugh in the face of salmonella — it’s just that food borne illness from uncooked eggs is unlikely. If you’re worried, buy pasteurized eggs.)

It was during my ice cream making adventure that I had my only unfortunate incident of the weekend. Saturday afternoon, EAToo kept offering to peel and slice peaches for me. He swore he was just offering to help so I could work on something else, but I’m pretty sure he thought I was going to hurt myself. On Sunday, while peeling and cutting the peaches for the ice cream, I thought I had slightly cut my thumb. Except there was no blood. Turns out that I had given myself a little splinter from a peach pit, once again ensuring my title as “Queen of the Freak Accidents.”

For some reason that I can’t properly explain, the ice cream didn’t freeze in my ice cream maker. Now, I don’t mean it didn’t get hard. I mean it was still liquid. Not one to give up, I went ahead and froze the mix in a bowl in the freezer, with pretty decent results:

Peach Ice Cream

It’s extremely rich ice cream, with the eggs and heavy cream. But that’s fine — I managed not to overindulge. You don’t need a lot at one time with the kind of flavor you get from the Jones Orchard peaches. And let’s face it — if I wanted to worry about the calories, I’d have skipped the ice cream making in the first place.

Stay tuned for Part 2: Adventures in Pickling!