Anne BralyI don’t know how many times I look back on my dear departed friend and former Tennessee Agriculture Extension Agent Marilyn Geraldson with a smile on my face, remembering hers.
I’ll never forget her infectious laugh and the many times we sat out on her back porch joking and laughing and, of course, talking about food. It’s hard to believe she’s been gone for almost three years now. She had one of the most remarkable senses of humor I’ve ever known and was such a good cook. Food and laughter are gifts from God, as is friendship.
As I said, I think of her often, but it’s especially true this time of year when peaches are ripe and ready to eat. Marilyn wrote a cookbook years ago, “The Veggie Lady Shares Tips and Recipes – Not Just Veggies,” and I am lucky to have one in my collection as it’s no longer in print and the copies that were printed back in 2006 sold out quickly. My copy has several pages that are well-worn and smudged with gooey delicious ingredients that have dripped on its pages. None is more pockmarked than page 339 with its one recipe for fresh peach cobbler. In fact, I’ve turned to it so often in past years, the book automatically opens to that page when I open the book. Many cooks have a cookbook so treasured.
I think of this cobbler as more of a clafouti, but Marilyn calls it a fresh peach cobbler, so that’s what we’re going to stick with. It’s the easiest of all cobblers to make because there’s nothing more to it than melting butter; mixing together flour, sugar and milk with some spices; tossing in the peaches and letting it bake. That’s it. All it needs is a big scoop of vanilla ice cream, as Marilyn would say.
Marilyn Geraldson’s Fresh Peach Cobbler