According to a questionable food holiday website, tomorrow is National Peach Cobbler Day. In Texas, America, this is a special occasion as the scent of peach cobbler is capable of taking most of us back to birthday parties around the pool (even if your birthday is in December) and barbecues every weekend. If you don't eat peach cobbler after conquering 2 pounds of barbecued meat, you're devoid of a soul. And probably arterial disease.
However, as celebrated a dessert as peach cobbler is, devoting a national food holiday to a fruit that isn't even in season for another eight weeks just plain silly. And un-Texan. Fredericksburg is not currently bursting with Hill Country peaches, limiting peach cobbler making to the frozen crap that tastes like bland slices of sadness.
Peaches aren't ready to make sweet, sweet cobbler in your oven until early June, after the fruit clusters are thinned and the temperature a bit warmer than the baseball-ruining cold snap we experienced earlier this week. OK, a lot warmer. OK, they need you to be sweating your ass off so you'll really appreciate their juicy guts.
So until the dingus that scheduled National Peach Cobbler Day in APRIL decides to reschedule to July, we'll have to find alternative produce with which to make cobbler. Except that blueberries and blackberries are just about the only acceptable cobbler filling in season right now. But if you're like me and watched Stand By Me too many times, anything with a dark berry is off limits for fear of uncontrollable vomiting.
Let's explore what is in season. How does a Swiss chard cobbler sound? Asparagus cobbler? Arugula cobbler? Onion cobbler? Mmm ... garlic cobbler. No? Not so much? You know what else is in season? KITTENS. But kitten cobbler is both unethical and way too cute to eat, so let's just wait until July to get our cobbler on, shall we?
A recent, rather lazy poll of Observer writers and our managing editor has determined that a perhaps the most impressive peach cobbler is available at Fireside Pies, made with fresh, local peaches and lots and lots and lots of butter. Butter, y'all.
However, I see your Fireside Pies peach cobbler, LDD, and raise you the Country of Texas' most perfect peach cobbler, made by my mom. Because moms.
