(Intro Music plays) I know I say this kind of thing all the time, but I really mean it when I say the thing I look forward to most all year long is my first bite of a perfectly ripe, fragrant, juicy peach.
(Theme Music plays- The Avett Brothers "Will You Return") I'm Vivian and I'm a chef.
My husband, Ben and I were working for some of the best chefs in New York City when my parents offered to help us open our own restaurant.
Of course, there was a catch.
We had to open this restaurant in Eastern North Carolina, where I grew up and said I would never return.
(Theme Music plays) (Theme Music plays) So this is my life.
Raising twins, living in the house I grew up in, and exploring the south, one ingredient at a time.
Previously on A Chef's Life.
I am trying to write and deliver a cookbook by January, which is really crazy timing.
You know I'm writing this cookbook?
I know I'm pretty excited about that.
I'm glad you are.
Yeah, I love it.
I just need to carve out time to do it.
Tomorrow morning I'm doing the Today Show.
It's time for Today's kitchen.
There she is!
(laughter) (Music plays) Okay, yeah that looks good.
So, just keep doing that.
If I had a mask for you I would give you one.
It's okay.
I am back from my annual family beach vacation.
Unlike other years when I came back this year, you know the walk-in looks great, the kitchen looks great, but you know every summer I feel this crazed urgency to make the most of the ingredients and do something new and creative and change the menu all the time because there's just tons of summer ingredients that I feel like I need to be focusing on.
When I got here yesterday there was like eight baskets of peaches and so today we are doing a ton of stuff.
Alright, so let's just bring it up so we can get it going because I would like to see it on the menu tonight.
Okay, so we're going to change the strawberry preserves tonight to curried peach preserves.
We got the country ham wrapped peaches.
Pork chops are going to take the jalapeno peach glaze and the charred peach.
I'm going to do a flounder crudo with peach and corn.
I'm really tied up today trying to get this peach stuff on and tomorrow we are pretending like it's Thanksgiving at my house.
The Local Palate is coming to photograph it.
So we'll be prepping for Thanksgiving tomorrow.
This is Anna.
Hey.
She is a teacher and has the summer off and is going to be my helper for two weeks.
So don't try to get her to do anybody's prep or any of that stuff.
She's helping me.
Alright.
Peaches are really only at their prime for about one month every summer.
So, when we start to see perfect peaches we scurry around and try to make as many peach products that we can then pull out later times of the year to spice up our menu.
We're making a curried peach preserve which is something I've done several years now and it's something I'm really proud of.
We have taken the peaches and let them macerate overnight with curry powder, sugar, lime zest, orange zest, star anise, ginger, and then we're going to cook it really slowly on the stove.
The difference between this and like making a typical jam is that everything would break down and become kind of a muddled jam but because we let it macerate it draws out a lot of the moisture from the peaches and allows the peaches to kind of hold their shape a little better making it more attractive, making it look more like peach something.
I'm also going to use this for my Thanksgiving in July extravaganza.
I'm trying to get some cattails because I think they'll look like Thanksgiving.
I've got tons of cattails on the farm.
You do?
I can get a bunch of them if you want 'em?
Will you?
Yeah.
My peach preserves have cooked down and I think they're at the right consistency, but the next thing I need to do is add some citrus.
Kind of give the preserves some balance.
I'm going to add lime juice and orange juice.
Stir that all in.
You always have to test the syrup to see how thick it is so I'm going to cook it down.
If it's not thick enough I'm going to cook it down longer.
Tastes great.
Georgia and South Carolina are really known for their peaches.
North Carolina is not, but growing up we had a huge peach orchard outside of town and I grew up passing by it all the time.
(Music plays) Hey Curtis.
Hey Vivian.
How are you?
Good.
How are you?
Great.
Good to see you.
Thank you for doing this.
I know you're busy all the time but this is the heat of it.
They tell you when the sun is shining.
That's the produce business.
That's the produce.
I'd like to talk to you a little bit about peaches.
Okay.
A lot of the produce in here is from your farm.
That's right.
Peaches now are free stone peaches.
When you open them up the pit comes out.
Right.
The meat is not clinging to it.
So there's free stones and there's cling stones?
That's right.
I think, aren't cling stones usually the first peaches of the year?
That's right.
They are the first peaches.
Usually you'll start around the last of May.
And fruit in general, a lot starts out and improves as the season goes.
That's right.
That's right.
That's right.
Peaches is the first fruit.
If you think peaches you think summer time.
Strawberries are spring.
Peaches are summer.
(Music plays) I pulled up in front of the honor box.
So you leave the produce out here over night and that's what the honor box would be for is those melons.
Watermelons and cantaloupes.
Okay.
Come and get your watermelons.
So, let's walk out and see some of the trees.
Over here.
Okay.
(Music plays) How can you look at it here and tell that it's ripe because they all look the same to me.
When they get red like that you need to pull them.
Okay.
Don't wait til they get dark.
Unlike strawberries you pick peaches when they're not quite ready to eat.
Right.
Yeah, that's the way you want to do it.
You can let them get soft and if they get too soft they start falling off.
They're over ripe and then you'll get Japanese beetles in here.
Oh will they get in here too.
Those beetles.
They'll get all over them.
Is that the same as a June bug?
Something like that.
Yeah, something like a June bug.
That's not quite ready.
I think also, you can correct me if I'm wrong but when it's ripe you can smell it, when it's ready to eat.
Right.
So, often times I will get a box of peaches that are really firm, not perfectly ripe and I'll store it in the refrigerator and when I'm ready to use it... That's the wrong thing to do.
okay so... (laughs) What you wanna do is let them get real soft and then put them in the refrigerator.
Okay.
When you cut a peach, the free stone you want to take and cut around it down to the seed and then you take and hold it firm and twist it.
Half of it's gonna come off.
The seed's gonna be in the other half.
Then take a knife and pop it out.
If I wanted to eat one of these would I get it off the ground?
No, no, no, no honey.
You don't want to get it off the ground.
Is it sweet?
Um hmmm.
It's great.
It's great.
They're a good peach, I'll tell you.
I'm going to go on record and say probably peaches and watermelon are my favorite summer fruits.
I love a good peach.
(Music plays) Have you really gotten your technique down now?
I think so.
We brought him in this summer and I think Joseph had hoped that he would be sauteeing and plating and rushing around but for the first three weeks he just shucked corn.
And now, he just wraps peaches.
Yeah.
No.
It's fine.
Is that the tres leches cake?
Yes, Chef.
We've always made this cake called a tres leches cake.
It's light and creamy and I thought it would pair really nicely with the fragrant sweetness of peaches.
Tell me what this is.
This is the peach pastry cream.
We normally fold in whipped cream but I didn't want to because I didn't want to take away from the peach flavor so it has to set up in the refrigerator and also take time to get this peach syrup that I soaked the layers in, to soak into the cake so it's not so dry.
I'm also adding peach schnapps to it to make it... Peachier.
Okay, great.
If this is good I'll put it in my book.
Great.
(Music plays) You like the bourbon in it?
I think it needs a little bit more bourbon because to me it adds another dimension.
It's nice with the vanilla.
We probably need to get a cheaper bourbon.
Yeah, what did you get this time?
Oh!
Never cook with that!
Okay.
We're finishing the cake with a bourbon caramel and Kim does not, how do I say this?
Kim does not understand the world of booze.
So when you tell her to go get bourbon she goes to the top shelf and gets the most expensive product to then just burn off.
She's got to be monitored.
I didn't know.
You don't know your booze.
I know.
I'm sorry.
(Music plays) Hey Mom.
Hey!
Good morning!
How's it coming?
It's coming.
You know I've never done this before.
Alright Mom, so I'm going to make the syrup to put the peaches in and knowing Grandma I feel like she probably did a light syrup.
Yes.
I'm going to put two cups of sugar in this kettle.
When my Mom was a kid her family had a peach orchard in the backyard and for a week every summer her sister, her brother, my Mom, and my Grandmother would can peaches for days on end.
Tell me what you remember.
Well we had a grove.
Well, I would call it a grove because we had 40 trees.
We loved to play in them and climb in them and when it came peach time there was three or four days that two or three people peeled peaches.
What did y'all do with the peaches all year long?
Well we had peaches every Sunday for dessert with whipped cream.
Every Sunday along with fried chicken.
That sounds great.
It was great.
You see this seam right here, Mom?
Mmm hmm.
Slice down the seam and then twist.
It makes it really easy to get the pit out.
Yes.
Well, I've never actually canned peaches.
It seems pretty simple.
I'm gonna do most of these in the spirit of Grandma, but I'm also going to do a few with some other stuff in them as an exercise for the book.
(Music plays) I've been sterilizing these jars.
I'm going to get the jars out and pack the peaches in, pit side down and pour the hot syrup over.
That's just basic canned peaches.
I don't remember us having fried chicken much growing up.
We had that before you came along.
You say you missed a lot.
I did but I'm making up for it now.
(laughs) Syrup.
Watch out Mom.
We're going to put in these big jars,lemon, star anise, cinnamon stick, dried vanilla bean.
I've never really been interested in canning or preserving for my own personal use, but this past year I have gone absolutely wild for it and nothing comes through the front door of my house without me thinking about how I can stuff it in a jar and then bring it out in December.
Did y'all ever make homemade peach ice cream, Mom?
Oh yes.
A lot.
I think you go through those stages.
When you're younger you're going to do a lot more of that than when you're older.
Mom's been telling me that my whole life.
When I started wanting to cook she would say oh I used to be like you, looking at cookbooks all the time.
You'll grow out of that.
Oh I loved to cook back then.
It's not my favorite thing anymore.
It shouldn't be.
You have me.
That's right.
(Music plays) Alright, now we have to process them for 25 minutes.
Seems like a long time but I'm following the rules.
You are?
I am!
(Music plays) Voila!
Good Job.
Thanks Mom.
Looks good.
Does it bring back memories?
Mmmm hmmm.
So, during the summer I love to eat raw fish dishes.
Really light, bright things that have like nice acid and so I'm working on a flounder crudo and a crudo is a fancy way to say raw dressed fish, in the Italian tradition.
You know you have sashimi, you have crudo, and then you have something called ceviche, which is fish or shellfish that's been cooked by acid.
So what I'm doing with this dish is kind of combining the two.
I am going to dress it a traditional ceviche sauce that has been made by marinating my fish trimmings.
I've got peach, I've got red onion, I've got cucumber, I'm going to have some corn milk.
So then I'll strain all that out so this sauce will hopefully be really great.
We'll see.
I have this constant battle with myself when I go out to dinner and I eat in restaurants and I'm like ooh I wanna do something like that, oooh I love that technique and then I come back to Chef and the Farmer and I'm like ohhh we have to do Eastern North Carolina inspired foods.
So, I look at something like a crudo and it's a challenge for me to take that preparation and that technique and translate it to our concept.
So that's something we've been working on really hard in our kitchen.
This flounder crudo is an example of that.
It will be interesting to see what our customer base thinks.
Alright guys, we have a dish to talk about.
It's flounder and peach crudo.
We talk about crudos as being sliced raw fish with just a little bit of lemon and olive oil on it.
Obviously we have taken it beyond that and actually made a sauce like you would to cure fish in for ceviche.
I could very easily make this a ceviche by dressing it with this liquid 15 minutes ago and it would turn white and it would cook, but in my estimation it gets kind of chewy and not that awesome.
You know what I mean?
This is not for everybody, but it's your job to sell them.
I'm done.
(Music plays) Alright, so we're plating 72 and 73 a casserole, hamburger medium, and a tomato pie.
Plate a New York strip med rare.
Did y'all not like the crudo?
Honestly not my favorite.
Really?
Don't get mad at me.
I'm not.
We just haven't sold any.
Okay, we'll push it, Chef.
Are y'all gonna sell some?
Okay because we haven't sold any yet.
Sorry Jason.
I'm sorry.
My mantra is that if the servers don't feel good about it, they're not gonna sell it and they're not selling this crudo.
Okay, I got two crudos on the board.
But I'm willing to keep trying.
Sometimes these things take a little while.
So, tell me when you're ready for the crudo.
It's plated.
We don't have food for this event.
And how are we supposed to accommodate 35 people right now?
Are we going to try and do this?
Fish, beef, pork, chicken...
It says three apps.
Fish, beef, pork, chicken.
35 people.
We gotta set up the room.
There's no way.
(Music plays) We're clearly busy and we obviously make mistakes.
Some mistakes are bigger than others.
And you know if we miss a reservation we can generally find a table to put that party at.
But if we miss an entire party for 30 people upstairs and have it booked on the wrong night that is a big nasty giant mistake.
We're going to have to do it.
No more walk-ins.
We're gonna need every last piece of food we've got.
You can't turn this away.
They do a ton of business with us.
Okay, listen up guys.
So, there's a big mix up and that party of 35 that was supposed to be tomorrow night is here.
Oh my god.
It's three appetizers so let's do shiitake mushroom pizza.
Let's go ahead and build six of them.
Pork belly skewers.
We'll do one per person.
What about one peach per person?
Joey peaches.
(Laughter) Let's roll some peaches.
We've got some drama today.
Somebody might lose their job and I might have a heart attack.
Why does this have to be so hard?
Hi.
We're here for the party.
Yes sir.
I believe they're still setting up the party.
We have about four minutes.
Okay.
Thank you.
This is getting a little bit stressful.
The party is here.
Four minutes before they're supposed to go up there and I have not been told that the party is ready yet, that it's set up.
Hi I haven't forgotten about ya.
37 and 50?
(laughs) I don't know why I'm laughing.
Because that's all we have.
That's the only thing we can do right now.
Hey Vivian, 37- 50 is gonna be the number.
Fifty?
50 slices.
So, there's 50 people.
Help Joey.
If there really are 50 people we're going to need more peaches.
I mean we're ready anytime you can take us.
Okay, yes mam absolutely.
Thank you.
Those take 15 or 20 minutes.
The peaches will take 15 or 20 minutes.
We're sending fried collards up right now.
I'm just saying.
We've already got this in motion.
I'll get some pimento cheese.
Can you let the kitchen do?
Okay, but at this point we should all know that a cold appetizer is the easiest and quickest thing to get up.
All you need is like five little ramekins with crackers.
People would already be quite and instead we put out bread and they're going to eat that and we're going to run out.
Each table gets... Each table gets the same.
So, I got seven catfish, 14 New York Strips, I got eight pork, and three squash.
Okay, so 32 green salads.
I got 7 catfish, 8 pork chops, 3 squash casserole, and 14 strips.
Cook those med rare.
How many pork chops does he have on the board all day including the party?
We got 13 on the board.
We got four working it looks like.
So Ted, I don't mean to be a smart, but this is what I want your pork chops to look like.
You got to have the caramelization.
This whole party...
I know.
That's why I'm not yelling or anything.
I got to tell you, you know?
A big part of what we do in this business is respond to emergencies and based on tonight it looks like we're getting pretty good at our job.
Aren't you glad you're a teacher and not in the restaurant business?
A little bit.
(Laughter) This does not normally happen.
Things like this happen.
That didn't really go as planned and as I usually say, thank God it's over!
Okay fired.
It's never over.
I'm going to 86 crudo after selling three!
(laughter) (birds chirping) What are the two versions of the cheese ball?
They're the same, but we're going to serve this one on a curried peach preserve.
And now's the time for peaches.
Yes it sure is.
We're going to add a little height on some of it.
The light's really pretty right here so I'll probably shoot from this side.
It's perfect.
Magazines are called long lead publications.
That means if the magazine's gonna come out in November, you're planning for it six months before.
So now I find myself doing things people often joke about and I'm having Thanksgiving in July.
(Cheering) Okay, now do it again 25 times.
It's so interesting to me how my family has reacted to this celebrity thing.
My sisters in particular have been incredibly supportive and kind of giddy about it all.
Just a little bit of teasing.
This is her specialty.
I feel like it's 1987 again.
(Laughter) Woah!
(Laughter) Let's see.
No it's gonna fall.
Yeah, it'll fall.
It's not bad.
(Laughter) I look like a crazy person.
You kind do!
Your hair looks good.
Johnna did that.
My dad used to say when my friend and I rode around you couldn't see through the car because our hair met in the middle.
(Laughter) Alright, are we ready?
I think that we're ready.
Let's go.
So, Thanksgiving in July looks a lot like Thanksgiving in November.
We have turkey with jalapeno peach glaze, sweet potatoes with pecan cranberry relish, collard dolmades, turnip root and green dressing, a cheese ball with curried peach preserves.
So I had to scrounge up people to come and eat this fake Thanksgiving and who else are you supposed to eat Thanksgiving but your family?
Flo do you wanna say the blessing for us?
Say the blessing for us.
So, God gave us candy and strawberries.
(Laughter) Everybody look at me Cheese!
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