Millions of Peaches...

Millons of yummy ripe peaches...

A case of fuzzy, yummy, Georgia peaches sits behind me as I bounce in the passenger seat on I-16 on the way to the coast.  How can a road so damn straight be so relentlessly bumpy? I’ve had this hang up about I-16 since my first trip on this mind-numbing highway back in the early ‘90’s (a trip to visit Amy and her family at Jekyll Island).  I’m usually self-rliant when it comes to occupying my brain, but something about this stretch of pavement that runs from Macon to Savannah turns my thoughts to mush.  The fact that I’m able to string words together in any semi-sensical order is actually quite impressive.  My aversion to I-16 has nothing at all to do with the communities that the lie on either end or to either side.  In fact, any excuse to get off the highway is a welcome one and we’ve had some great trips to Lyons, Vidalia, Swainsboro, Statesboro, Register, Claxton, and the like.  And Savannah is an amazing city worth hacking your way through a jungle to reach.  In fact, maybe we’ll stop there for lunch.

This leg of our journey began near Fort Valley in a little community called Zenith at the Pearson family’s 5^th generation peach and pecan farm.  That kind of operation is somewhat common in Europe (though less and less it’s sad to say), but it’s almost unheard of in this country.  When Al Pearson talks about his farm and tells stories of his grandfather, there’s a sense of pride there that you can almost feel.  They may not be the largest peach orchard in the state, but they’re worth seeking out.  Al and his wife Mary disagree about what variety is their best peach (Mary prefers the white-meat varieties), but they know they have something special going there. 

I’ve eaten about 10 peaches since our stop in Zenith.  I rarely ever eat peaches at home, but I realize now that most of the grocery store variety peaches we have access to are over-hybridized and under-ripe.   These Pearson peaches are the kind that send juice running off your chin and down to your elbows.  Delicious!  I’m looking forward to cooking with them on the show.

The 'Hans Mobile' sits in the shade of a pecan tree at Pearson farm.  

Much to do…peaches to eat!  Gesundheit,

Hans

Another patch of blue...

Welcome to Alma, GA

You can't do a show on blueberries in Georgia without making a stop in Alma.  The blueberry capital of Georgia, Alma produces as much as a million pounds of berries a week during peak harvest season.  Georgia is the country's third largest producer of blueberries behind Michigan and Maine, but that fact seems to surprise most folks.  But when you stand in a field of blueberries that seems to stretch on forever in all directions, it's hard to imagine that anyone could produce more berries.  The fields contain two main varieties with the high bush types bearing first followed by the rabbit-eye bushes (though technically rabbit-eyes are also high bush plants).  The high bush plants have to be picked by hand and each bush gets visited as many as four or five times as the berries ripen in waves.  The rabbit-eye varieties can be machine harvested and the machines used to harvest them look like strange, land-locked houseboats.  

If someone put you in a mine full of loose diamonds and said "help yourself to all you want", would you ever leave?  That was the problem that Huitt and I had in Alma.  We were told to eat as many berries as we liked and I nearly had to pull Huitt away from an endless sea of blue.  And they were absolutely delicious blueberries too.  I found myself picking and eating with one hand while picking and holding berries with the other.  So even as I was walking back to the Explorer, I was still popping blueberries in my head like some addict whose willpower had long ago vanished.  

All you can eat...and t hen some.

So we shot our blueberry show on Thursday night and I'm still not sick of them.  I made a Blue-Blue salad with blueberries and blue cheese, a peach-blueberry chutney served with duck, blueberry cornbread, and a orange-blueberry "flancake" clafouti.  I haven't seen the footage yet, but I know my teeth have to be stained blue.

Much to do!  More soon.

Gesundheit,

Hans  

Vidalia

Mountains of sweet onions just waiting to be eaten

Oh my.  If you've never experienced the wonder that is the Vidalia onion, you're probably curious as to how anyone could get excited about an onion.  Truth be told, I get excited about a good many ingredients, but these things are extra special yummy.  It seems the sandy, somewhat rocky soil in and around Vidalia is blessed with a naturally low sulfur content which keeps the onions from developing that stinging, almost hot quality that most onions possess.  It also means less gas for the consumer, which ain't a bad thing either.  Vidalia onions contain a higher natural sugar content than most apples and you truly can pick one up and eat it just like an apple.  Some of you may remember my face on the Food Network when I took a bite of what was SUPPOSED to be a Vidalia onion, but in fact was an onion cast from the bowels of Hades.  It was by far the hottest damned onion I've ever eaten.  I should've been wary of a Vidalia in January, but I'm not always none for my quick intellect.

We stayed with the Stanley family who are third generation farmers in Lyons, GA just outside of Vidalia.  Apart from being extremely nice people, they're also foodies and took us to an amazing restaurant in downtown Lyons called Elements.  You'd have to see this place to believe it and even then, you won't believe it's in the sleepy downtown of Lyons.  If you find yourself in South Georgia, you owe it to yourself to go there.  In addition to farming, the Stanleys also produce food products from their famed, certified sweet onions at their Vidalia Valley processing plant.  They make salsas (the Peach Salsa is incredibly delicious), BBQ sauces, relishes and such, plus you can order fresh onions from them.  I suggest you get some...now!

Neat Wheat!

One of the things that surprised me about Vidalia was just how much wheat was being grown there.  There's just something magical about standing in a field of wheat.  Beautiful stuff.  

One delicious onion after another...

I'll leave you with a picture of a field of onions, which to me is just downright impressive.  Delicious onions stretch out as far as the eye can see, and then some!  It's onion season people...let's eat!

More soon...gesundheit!

Hans