One hundred and fifty-eight

That's how many pounds of peaches Rachel and I picked this afternoon. All by ourselves. Go team!

Cherry Hill Orchards is less than ten minutes from my house, and what's better than standing in a peach orchard, eating a juicy orb of goodness that you just pulled from a tree? Not much. So off we went. And guess what? They're only 75 cents per pound when you pick over 100 pounds. Score.

Our house smells like peaches now. I have two giant baskets sitting by the front door-- they are for friends, so yeah, we aren't actually keeping all 158 pounds-- and three big bags in the kitchen, and about sixteen really ripe peaches sitting on the counter waiting to go into pies and smoothies and baked oatmeal over the weekend. Four of the largest already met their scrumptious end in a cobbler. I can't wait.

The only meh aspect to this whole peach affair is their non-organic status. Peaches are some of the most intensely pesticided (a word? yes? no?) fruits out there. Boo. However, they aren't going to kill us, and I try to avoid the Dirty Dozen List the rest of the time, so . . . whatevs.

Back to our regularly scheduled nonsense. Ahem! Peach cobbler. I have this perfect, wonderful, delicious, cannot-be-improved upon recipe for said cobbler, so of course I didn't follow it. Nope. First I left the peaches unpeeled. Then I borrowed this brilliant idea and spiked the filling with bourbon. Then I omitted the lemon zest and nutmeg. And then I wanted the biscuity bit to crunch, for a contrast with the velvety soft peaches, so I subbed some white stone-ground cornmeal for half of the flour.

I think it worked. Don't know how it tastes yet, but that bubbly, syrupy, golden mess looks awfully good. And besides, it has a buttery crust and peaches and bourbon. Hello?