If you’re all in for peaches, Wickham’s Fruit Farm has them by the bushel, $25 for enough fruit to keep you busy all weekend. Smaller quantities are available at farm stands everywhere.
Local chefs are taking advantage of the all-too-brief bounty.
At Noah’s in Greenport, peach puree is the key component of Peach Jalapeno a vodka-based summer cocktail that pairs peach with a punch.
Briermere Farms, voted one of the best places for pie in Northforkers 2021 Best of competition is celebrating this month’s peachalanche with a stunning array of possibilities: Peach Pie, Peach-Cherry, Raspberry-Peach and Peach Cream Pie.
Lisa Murphy, a pastry chef who now owns Vine Street Café on Shelter Island with partner and husband Terry Harwood is making a Peach Blueberry Croustade w/ Pistachio Nut Crumble and Buttermilk Ice Cream. It’s a rustic layer of tender buttery crust filled with sliced peaches, and enough blueberries to peek out the top, adorned with a scoop of ice cream, and a scattering of toasted nuts.
Amanda Hayward at Commander Cody’s on Shelter Island is partial to grilling her peaches. “I halve them, brush them with clarified butter and grill-not long, 4-5 minutes. It helps if the peach is just perfectly ripe and tender, so you get nice grill marks Then I serve with homemade ice cream and whipped cream flavored with bourbon.”
Grilled peaches are also favorite of Marie Eiffel, of Shelter Island’s Marie Eiffel Market. She likes to serve them alongside a nice grilled filet of local fish.
You should eat a peach, but that’s not the only way to get that sweet summer flavor in your mouth. Recently a customer came into Hook & Net in Greenport — where chef Gayle Scarberry has been cooking calamari and salmon burgers and smoking fish — and offered her a literal windfall: a tree’s worth of peach wood that was felled by a storm over the winter. “Now I’m curing peach wood out back,” said Scarberry. “For scallops, and a lot of sweeter seafood that I smoke, fruitwood is amazing.”