Eat Arkansas

They're pretty good. I like their muscadine jelly (heck, I just like muscadines, period) and Mom's a big blackberry preserve fan.

If you get the chance and can find it, their Chow-Chow is really good, especially when you add a couple of tablespoons to cooking corn or lima beans.

It's okay. I like peaches, but don't like any more sugar being added to the fruit. All of the peach desserts out there are not pleasing to me. How does the flavor of this compare to the flavor of unprocessed peaches?

The glaze idea does sound promising, almost as a replacement for honey in some recipes.

**Eat Arkansas: It actually tastes really fresh. It doesn't leave that lingering sweet aftertaste that so many other jams and jellys have. It is only sweetened with white grape juice concentrate.

At the AQ restaurants in NWA, they have strawberry jam from House of Webster on the table for you to spread on their large tasty yeast rolls. Mighty good.

And while I'm sure that peach spread is quite good, I have just the oppposite issue you do, Jessica. I'll eat a fresh raw peach any time of day or night. I like them even better if I know I picked them right off the tree. But I don't like peach cobbler, peach crumble or any other way that has them cooked (not just a peach thing...there are few fruits that I'll eat cooked). Peach ice cream is OK because my Mom doesn't cook the peaches.

As a kid I was never a fan of peaches either. Those awful hard things in the grocery store or the ubiquitous canned peach half plopped on the plastic lunch tray just about did me in. This was until I spent a summer on Crowley's Ridge. We had fresh peaches all summer long and I quickly became a huge fan. White peaches, red peaches, yellow peaches of various sizes and flavors. There was one that was so spicey and complex...Richhaven, if I'm not mistaken.

I love peaches just about any way. They are great in smoothies, frozen daquiries, whole, in a savory/sweet salsa, and lots of things I haven't thought of yet. I tried a peach upside down cake last year and was very pleased. Last year the only fresh peaches available were some that Jody Hardin got from Louisianna. This year the crop seems to be doing well. I guess taking a year off from fruiting was good for the trees, if not for us.

I don't mind the peel, I just wash the fuzz off. Hmmm, I might have to buy some tomorrow at the Farmers' Markets.

We went to BJ's one day on our "produce tour" north of the river. We left empty-handed, since none of the produce was chemical-free, but (OK, I lie--I caved and bought my daughter 3 bananas. So much for eating local for a month.) the array of fruit spreads was the single thing that tempted me. In the end, I didn't get any because they were all loaded with HFCS, which we're trying desperately to cut out of our diets (easier said than done). We went home and made our own jelly instead. I bet those spreads are good, though.

I should add, this particular spread was not in evidence the day I was there...or it wasn't one whose label I examined. I didn't find any that weren't sweetened with multiples types of corn syrup.

And if you make your own yogurt (and if you don't, why not? It's so easy), just a spoonful of something like this, or even local honey, per quart of yogurt at the beginning of culturing makes for a DELICIOUS finished product! It's like the yogurt (or kefir, if you like, which is even easier to make) is infused with the fruit or honey flavor. YUM.