What’s in Season: Peaches
One of the quintessential rituals of summer for me is biting into a perfectly ripe peach, the juice running down my fingers. It is precisely this iconic taste of summer, the just-picked, perfectly tree-ripened peach, that Healdsburg’s Dry Creek Peach offers its customers every year, from Memorial Day through Labor Day.
You can (and should) experience it for yourself at Dry Creek Peach’s farm stand or their booths at the Healdsburg Farmers’ Market and Luther Burbank Santa Rosa Farmers’ Market in season. They’ll likely have other farm-fresh produce, peach jam, cobbler mix and other farm-made products on offer. If you’re exceptionally lucky, they’ll have Bellinis! Wherever you seek them out, be sure to get there early—these gems sell out quickly!
Dry Creek Peach’s owners, Brian Sullivan and Gayle Okumura Sullivan, bought the historic fruit farm in 2000 and began expanding the existing peach plantings and adding other stone fruit trees, as well as converting to 100% organic farming. Sonoma County’s Dry Creek Valley was once notable for its fruit, but today grapevines dominate the valley and the Sullivan’s is the last remaining fruit farm in Dry Creek Valley, and the only one in all of Sonoma County dedicated to certified organic peaches.
The farm’s acreage supports 1,000 trees which, over the season, produce 30 different varieties of peaches. Some, like the yellow O’Henry, are old-fashioned, long-time favorites. Others, like the white variety Spring Snow, are newer. “We always have a mix of yellow and white varieties available,” says Gayle. “The season begins with Rich May, a white variety and the first to ripen. It ends with a yellow peach, Last Chance, famously referred to by Alice Waters as her “Last Meal” of choice in a New York Times interview.
Gayle’s love of peaches becomes abundantly clear when she starts talking about using them in cooking. “One of my favorites to make is a fresh peach pie.” (Her recipe can be found on the farm’s website.) She uses fresh peaches in a salad of bitter greens and crunchy walnuts; she pairs peaches with prosciutto for an appetizer; for dessert she favors peaches grilled or in galettes. “You can use peaches in dinner from start to finish—in every course,” she says.
The couple is planning to host a dinner in the orchard this summer, in conjunction with Healdsburg’s Relish Culinary, and will also be featured in a peach-and-duck pairing dinner at Kendall-Jackson Wines. These types of gatherings were pre-pandemic favorites, so she warns that the events sell out fast. Sign up for their email to be in the know!
