My local market had fresh peaches on sale this week for USD $0.98 per pound, so I bought three peaches. They were the first I've had this season and they are so good! Blueberries were also on sale for USD $2.98 per pint, so I got a pint of those, too. I've been alternating the blueberries and peaches on oatmeal the past few mornings. There's nothing like fresh fruit on warm cereal to start the day!
When I was a child, home canning and freezing were big things among much of my family as a way of preserving foods. My mother's sister, my Aunt Carrie, frequently bought peaches when they were on sale at the Farmer's Market near her. She would cut them open, remove the pit from the center, then dice the flesh into chunks. She would sprinkle a little sugar on them, spoon them into freezer bags, and carefully stack them in her freezer.
On hot summer days when we needed a refreshing treat, she would take a bag from the freezer and spoon the peaches into little dessert dishes, or sometimes put them over vanilla ice cream. We'd eat them frozen, as the small chunks would thaw quickly in our mouths and cool us down. Being partly frozen as we ate them, they had a 'crunchy' texture to them, so I dubbed them "Crunchy Peaches" 😁 and they are a very fond memory from my childhood!
One of the most wonderful dishes to make with this juicy, summery fruit is Peach Cobbler, a common dessert in my part of the world. For those not familiar with a "cobbler," it is like an upside-down pie with fruit in the bottom. The fruit is almost always cooked a little first so as to be very soft, or a fruit compote can be used, instead. The crust on top is usually soft, like a Southern biscuit (similar to a "scone" for those from the UK). For the recipe I use, click here
I have occasionally seen restaurants trying to be "upscale" by using a flakey pastry crust on a cobbler, but that is definitely something different than a traditional "cobbler." In a similar manner, would a chef put CoolWhip™ on top of Lemon Meringue Pie instead of whipped egg whites? Could a menu list "Caesar Salad" if it were made with anything but romaine lettuce? I don't think so, and would be very disappointed in both cases!
Thinking of cobbler, I remember an interesting recipe posted last year by 
Due to the typical golden coloring of the fruit as well as its characteristic cleft, a long-running sophomoric joke is that it rather resembles a human butt. In modern communications, the peach emoji 🍑 is often used in that same context. 😜
The website RoadsideAmerica.com collects quirky and unusual things that can be found along the roadside across the US and has listed the Peachoid among them. For travelers planning an excursion down Interstate-85 in South Carolina, look for this distinctive water tower near the town of Gaffney (between Charlotte, NC, and Spartanburg, SC), at the following coordinates on BING Maps 35.09531068037984, -81.68580944587805 or with Google Maps PLUS CODE: 38W7+4J Gaffney, South Carolina
