Very funny. Yes, it’s called Pandowdy, and yes, Ginger Peach sounds like she’s waiting tables at Dollywood, and yes, it’s the finest reward of summer. We’ll make it – but first, let me tell you about that tomato up there, and what it’s got to do with Ginger.

The wonderful Margaret Roach, she of A Way to Garden and The Sister Project, invited me to participate in Summer Fest 2009. The Fest is a regular cross-blogging party: every week a new food-from-the-garden theme gets turned over to several stellar bloggers, including Margaret, Matt Armendariz of Mattbites, Jaden Hair of Steamy Kitchen, and Todd and Diane of White on Rice Couple. Also popping up: Shauna and Daniel Ahern from Gluten-Free Girl, Paige Smith Orloff of The Sister Project, and, for the love of pie crust, me.

And also you! Summer Fest is a great way to find new blogs, get new ideas and contribute a few of your own.

Summer Fest 2009

Tuesday, July 28: HERBS

Tuesday, August 4: FRUITS from TREES

Visit all of these terrific bloggers for amazing recipes, gorgeous photos, funny stories, and to share your own tips!

• Margaret Roach @ A Way to Garden: Peach Clafoutis
• Paige Smith Orloff @ The Sister Project: Plum Tarte Tatin
• Jaden Hair @ Steamy Kitchen: Chanterelle, Bacon and Plum Salad with Blue Cheese
• Diane & Todd @ White on Rice Couple: Refreshing Peach Coolers
• Matt Armendariz @ Mattbites: Apricot Ice Cream
  

Tuesday, August 11: BEANS-AND-GREENS WEEK (either or both, your choice).

Tuesday, August 18: TOMATO WEEK

Hopscotch around these great blogs, find what you like and please leave something to share, like recipes, links or tips. Do you have great tomato plants, a super apricot dessert? Introduce yourself, and comment away.  If you’ve got a blog, grab the juicy red Summer Fest badge (created by Matt) and create a post of your own. You can swing by every breezy, delicious week – it’s summer. It’s a Fest. And all are welcome.

Now let’s return to our heroine, Ginger Peach. For my Fest guest spot this week, we’re making Ginger Peach Pandowdy, and we already know it’s hilarious, a cross between long-legged Daisy Duke and pale old Aunt Em. Oh, Auntie Em. When you live in Kansas, there’s no escaping Oz talk. Not here, of course – I mean the Oz talk waiting for luggage at JFK, or at a party in Santa Monica or on a boat down the Amazon, for that matter. If a rainforest tribesman heard you were from Kansas, I’ve no doubt he’d thump his stick and say, “Dorothy! Toto too.”

I moved here from Chicago and Greg hails from suburban Kansas City, suburbs like any other. Our university town, Lawrence, is full of artisan ales and sushi, scholars and lawyers and Kobe burgers. So what’s the matter with Kansas? Well, you can love the place – we do – but because it’s Kansas you’ll be on the defensive, for the rest of your sensible Midwestern life.  You will, at some point, be confronted by guffawing conventioneers on one coast or another, slapping you on the back and demanding your ruby slippers.

C’est la vie Kansan.

And I’m sharing all this because? Well, I’d originally planned a different dessert, Ginger-Peach Empanadas, but then my mother called, and Josie required a chauffeur, and then a house fell on my head and there were little people. No, it did not work out at all. But I did salvage the peaches and the dough, and used them to make something else.  I must say it was a masterful repurposing, in line with my beloved chef-mentor’s mantra, “We don’t eat our mistakes. We fix them.”

I loved this ginger-kissed bottomless pie, and suddenly full of can-do spirit, I envisioned a philosophical post about beating obstacles, and silver linings. I photographed the dish, sugared and sparkling, but as I breathed in peachy steam through the lens, I realized what I’d actually baked: a Pandowdy.

Now, there are cobblers, crisps, Bettys, buckles, grunts and even slumps – and then, there is the truly old-fashioned Pandowdy: a dessert of fresh fruit baked under pie crust shapes. But Pandowdy did not sound like Ginger-Peach Empanadas. “Empanada did sound more exciting,” said Josie. “Cobbler. Can’t it be a cobbler?”

“No,” I told her, with a heavy blogger’s heart, “it’s a Pandowdy.”

And no matter. We accept the names of things and look for what lies beneath, striving to never judge dessert by its topping. Besides, that Ginger Peach – she’s a swell girl, not dowdy at all, and proud to be who she is: homey, sweet, a few piercings. And more than a little bit spicy.

GINGER PEACH PANDOWDY

Pie Dough

3 cups unsifted all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon powdered ginger
4 oz (1 stick) cold unsalted butter, cut in chunks
4 oz shortening, cold, in chunks
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
2 extra-large egg yolks, cold
4 tablespoons ice water, or more as needed

To make dough by hand: Stir flour, salt and powdered ginger together in large bowl. Scatter butter and shortening chunks over flour mixture. Using pastry blender or two knives, “cut” the butter/shortening into the flour, crumbling with hands as necessary, until mixture resembles coarse cornmeal. Sprinkle sugar over mixture and stir in quickly. Blend egg yolks and water in small bowl, then pour over flour mixture. Combine everything (using hands) to make a smooth, firm dough. If dough seems dry, add ice water in drops, mixing to combine. Turn out dough onto parchment, wax paper or lightly floured surface, pressing to form a smooth, flat round. Cut dough in half, wrap each half, and chill until ready to use.

To make dough in food processor: Place flour, salt and powdered ginger in work bowl of processor fitted with steel blade. Pulse a few times just to combine. Add butter/shortening chunks over flour and process, using on-off pulses, until fat is reduced to large flakes. Sprinkle with sugar, and pulse 1-2 seconds to blend. Beat egg yolk and ice water in small bowl, then pour over flour mixture. Pulse mixture to combine, using on-off pulses, just until a rough dough begins to come together. If dough seems too dry, add extra drops of water and pulse just until dough combines. Turn out dough onto parchment, wax paper or lightly floured surface, pressing to form a smooth, flat round. Cut dough in half, wrap each half, and chill until ready to use.

Ginger Peach Filling

2 tablespoons cornstarch
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
pinch sea salt
7 large peaches, peeled, pitted, cubed and tossed with 2 teaspoons lemon juice
finely grated zest of 1 small lemon
1/2 cup (approx. 3 oz.) crystallized ginger, chopped in small dice
1/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1 tablespoon milk or half-and-half
1 tablespoon water
Demerara (turbinado, raw cane) sugar for sprinkling (or granulated)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

Whisk together cornstarch, granulated sugar, nutmeg, cinnamon and sea salt in large bowl. Add the peaches, lemon zest, crystallized ginger and vanilla, and toss well to combine. Pour filling into deep oval or rectangular baking dish, and set aside while you roll pie dough. (A lower, wider rectangular dish, like a 9 x 13 pan, will work but will result in a shorter layer of fruit.)

Assemble and bake pandowdy:

Roll out both chilled dough halves on a lightly floured surface, 1/4 – 1/2″ thick. Using a 2 – 3″ round cookie cutter, stamp circles from dough, gathering scraps and re-rolling until done. Set aside a small amount of dough for fluted rim and top decorations, if desired.

Now, starting on one side of peach-filled baking dish, top fruit with rows of dough circles, overlapping to form a “fish scale” pattern. Repeat until all fruit is is covered, pinching edges to sides of dish.

Fluted rim and decorations, optional: using both hands, roll reserved pie dough into long rope pieces. Press ropes around top edges of dish, pinching to join with dough circles. When finished, pinch rope edge down so that short triangles stick up, working around rim until done. Decorations: roll and cut “peach,” leaf or heart shapes, as desired. Brush back of decorations with water, and arrange atop dough circles.

Mix milk (or half-and-half) with water in small dish, then brush mixture over top of pandowdy. Sprinkle liberally with demerara (or granulated) sugar.

Place baking dish on cookie sheet (to catch drips) and bake in center of preheated oven for 20 – 30 minutes, until top crust browns and fruit juices bubble through. Serve warm, with ice cream.

Later that day we feasted at the legendary Brookville Hotel, serving fried chicken heaven since 1915.

It was an early Father’s Day dinner, and we saluted my husband and father-in-law, both great Dads. But the piping, crunchy chicken – seemingly endless legs, thighs, breasts, wings – reminded me who was missing at the table. A holiday for fathers, and for the first time without my own, eating a not-so-often treat he adored. I pushed back the hard gulp and saw what he would see – platters worth diving into, a laughing night of gluttony, a family taking pictures, rolling eyes and passing biscuits.

Back in Dep-haired teen years, my family’s favorite takeout was Brown’s Chicken – no Brookville feast, but plenty good paired with cole slaw, hush puppies, and honey. Dad would pick up his car keys, clink, and say “want to go for a ride?” Picking up stuff with Dad meant 8-track tunes and quick, friendly questions about boys, friends, classes, boys. Eyes would roll, but I didn’t mind. Something about the car rides was pleasant, okay even in teen view, an argument-free zone with a bag of warm chicken on my lap. Dad tapped out songs on the wheel and drove with his elbows, a knee, a thumb.

My father loved corn – on the cob, in a fresh juicy heap, or creamed, as we had it here, passed around the table more than once. His stomach forbade him to eat the corn, but not to say he wanted to eat the corn. “I love corn,” he’d say, “but I can’t eat it.” A predictable three minutes later, “well…maybe this once.”

Happy Father’s Day to you and yours. Great men aren’t here just once.  They go where we go, and I will snicker and cry and pass around more biscuits. All the best parts are still with us at the table.

* my father passed away December 5, 2008. Here’s the place to read more about him, and the eulogy I delivered that day.

So. Today, instead of a bright happy recipe with lots of steps, let’s just cool it down by gazing at a nice, frosty limeade.

There. That’s better. Oh Winstead‘s limeade, how you soothe. Topped with eye-popping sherbet and neon maraschinos, they’ve been spritzing up limeades at this Kansas City favorite since 1940. There is only one thing better than a Winstead’s limeade…

…a Winstead’s limeade with a Winstead’s burger.

Dab your eyes and wipe the keyboards, Kansas Citians and KC ex-pats – I just caught you drooling out there.

Tomorrow, we’ll go back to the kitchen. That is, after she-who-knows-all, she who got a fancy haircut and has laid out the outfit already, sprints from the car and into junior hell high. Better her than us, eh?

Or maybe my tart-lipped, gussied-up cousin is all “I-say-nothing” just because she’s made in France.

Yeah? Well, look at me!

I’m pressed too! Pressed right here on the counter.

So what if they bring that fresh lemon juice right to the table on a shiny tray, with a pitcher of water and tiny sugar cubes and a precious silver spoon. What of it?

So what if everybody gets to mix their sugar by themselves over there and, you know, adjust the taste?

I get my sugar dumped in, my friend. Dumped. One size sweetness fits all. Oh dear – I guess that isn’t very refined…but…but…I refresh them! I have a purpose!

Still nothing, eh? Okay, Citron Presse, that is enough.

You think Maitre d’ Antoine down there cares about serving you more than me? You are le wrong, cousin. You are just euros in the bank to him. But me, Limeade…

…they love me in Kansas. They worship me, pal, they need me. They sip me and guzzle me and when it’s 100 degrees they would like to shower in me.

Especially that Josie. She doesn’t care about your ooh-la-la drinks and your fancy chairs and lemony pressay-voo, no sir.

Crap.

Oh, fine.

Look – now I am le fancy Limeade. But don’t expect this every time.

Good Kansas Limeade

5 limes
about 1 quart water
1/2 cup sugar (to start)
2 cups ice
extra limes for slicing

To get the most juice from them, roll and press limes with your hands. Cut limes in half and juice, manually or with juice press. Pour juice into pitcher, add sugar and few lime slices. Mix together and stir in ice cubes. Begin to add the water, stirring and stopping to taste. Adjust limeade by adding water or sugar.

Serve over ice with more lime slices and, if desired, other fruit garnish.

Get Fancy! For a true Kansas City treat, make Cherry Limeade by adding maraschino cherries and their juice.

Where is the ultimate limeade meal? Click and see.

What’s next? Sad Sack Saturday?

The above bag is not vintage – it’s full of flour and I bought it just a few days ago at Dillon’s.

I don’t know if I adore Hudson Cream flour more for their happiness-inducing cow illustration or its magical, feather-light pastry powers. The flour is produced by Stafford County Flour Mills in tiny Hudson, Kansas, where it’s been milled for over 100 years.

Hudson Cream apparently has a web site, which I naively hoped they wouldn’t have. I was kind of hoping the miller’s golden-haired daughter was still passing out hand-printed leaflets in town in her white eyelet dress.

Anyway, it’s delightful:

“…how does a cow symbolize flour? In the early 1900s when the mill was built, many people owned their own cows for milking and it was commonly believed that the Jersey cow produced the best milk and cream. The mill’s founder chose the Jersey cow and the word “cream” to symbolize the white richness, smooth texture, and high quality of the flour.”

These people are serious about their flour. I love them.

I’ve always wanted to collect vintage flour sacks. It’s one of my most frequent searches on eBay: “flour sack,” “vintage flour sack,” “kansas flour sack,” and, of course, “old flour bakery kansas sack crazy collector woman.”

Ideally, they are from old mills that no longer exist. Like this one.

Let me extend my apologies right now. I’m sorry, mill – and town, and townspeople, and mill workers, and the good folks who drive the delivery truck. But I need that gorgeous sack.

Here in funky, college-town Lawrence, I am not country-kitchen girl. But I am obsessed-by-flour girl, and when I get my hands on an old flour sack, I want to find a stale sprinkling at the bottom. I want to hear the creaky bin roll across the mill floor, and I want to inhale the hot, windy air around the Kansas wheat.

If I don’t smell the burnt flour at the bottom of the oven, if I don’t hear Marge unlocking the back door to the donut bakery at sunrise…well, that sack’s just not old enough.

I can’t always get the bakery treasures I want. But here’s a few tiny ones for you; a very, very good thing to make with your own flour. Enjoy.

Cream Cheese Biscuits

I love biscuits, and will make them out of whatever is within reach. In a freak occurrence, I had very little butter in the house, and reached for cream cheese.

2 1/2 cups flour
1 tbsp baking powder
3⁄4 tsp salt
3 oz cream cheese
2 oz butter
2/3 cup milk (or plain yogurt)

In a large bowl, mix together flour, baking powder, and salt ingredients. Using a fork, knife or pastry cutter, cut in cream cheese and butter.

Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and pour in milk (or yogurt). Mix to form a rough ball of dough.

Turn out onto lightly floured surface and knead until dough just comes together.

Pat out to desired thickness (I like them fewer and taller – 3/4″ thick or so) and cut into rounds. Brush with milk or melted butter.

Bake on cookie sheet 10-12 minutes at 425, until lightly browned top and bottom.

Maybe she and El Casbah have catfights in the middle of the night. I don’t know.

The other side of Jayhawk Hotel proclaims “Air-Conditioned Rooms,” and that’s got to be tough. One can only be so sexy when talking about air-conditioning. But number one or not, I love the “Jayhawk Hotel.”

This enormous metal sign came into our lives back in 1993; right before our wedding and right after we’d bought a place in Chicago with sign-ready walls. We were visiting Greg’s parents in Kansas City and though we normally drove that trip, we had flown.

So when we found this Midwestern beauty leaning against a wall in a Lawrence antique mall and could not get her home, we did what any sensible young people would do; we rented a van to drive it back. Back in Chicago, we had to practically rivet it to the tiny sun room wall of our first place.

She presided over our first real married dinner at home; over a few early, disastrous dinner party attempts (smoke alarms, undercooked meat, overflowing disposal) and later, over several vastly more successful post-culinary school dinners. She enjoyed having company.

We both worked long crazy hours in 1993. Opening the door to the words “JAYHAWK” and, even better, “GOOD FOOD” never failed to lift tired spirits.

When we moved to Lawrence a few years later, it was a homecoming of sorts for the old girl. I can’t tell you how many people came through our house and said “oh, I remember the Jayhawk hotel,” or “I used to pass that place all the time!”

Here’s what I know about the Jayhawk Hotel (aka Hotel Jayhawk):

Built in downtown Topeka in 1925 (it’s no longer a hotel) the building is now on the National Register of Historic Places. Topeka is the capital city, and a Kansas history site notes that “when the legislature was in session, the hotel swirled with political intrigue.” Intrigue!

The hotel register boasts visiting celebrities like Groucho Marx, Bing Crosby, Roy Rogers and Dale Evans.

As if swingin’ Bing wasn’t enough, the hotel was also apparently a popular place for proms and glittering rooftop parties. A few people recall that if it wasn’t too sweltering, you could dance with your sweetheart to a live orchestra under the stars. Take that, El Casbah!

She’s seen some action, this girl. She’s properly rusted. So what if she doesn’t wear the crown?

This sensible, solid beauty keeps her secrets.