By Charley Falkenburg, Special Writer
LAWRENCE — Things were just peachy keen at Terhune Orchards last weekend as people came from all over to celebrate the season’s fuzziest fruit at the farm’s second annual peach festival.
And to pay homage to the peach, a lot of sampling went on at the farm-to-fork tasting section where local chefs whipped up their peachiest concoctions. This year’s festival featured 12 local restaurants and eateries during the weekend including: Big Fish Bistro, Buttons Creperie, ComfortFood, Emily’s Café and Catering, Eno Terra, Main Street Bistro and Bar, The Garden State Community Kitchen, Vu, Colonie, Escape and the Pub and Kitchen.
Grilled, sautéed, mashed, chilled and baked — each table featured a dish with its own spin on the festival’s fruit of honor. For Tess Hanewald, 10, of Lawrence, Main Street’s Peach Raspberry Cobbler was a must-try.
"It was so juicy and the whip cream — it wasn’t too much or too little," Tess explained. "It’s just so good."
On Saturday, Main Street was offering its Peach Barbeque Pulled Chicken over Spicy Southern Cheesy Grits, but opted for the more decadent cobbler for Sunday.
"It’s a dessert, so people stop here last to top off their day and they’ll remember us even more," said Main Street Chef Janet Bassano. "This is really a special dish and perfect for the season."
But Main Street wasn’t the only one there offering dessert that afternoon. Buttons Creperie had a line of people waiting to try its homemade cinnamon sugar crepe chips topped off with a peach and mint compote. Buttons’ cooked and cut about 450 peaches to complement the crispy crepe chips, a new item that can now be found on Buttons’ menu.
"We’ve had a really good turnout and it’s interesting to see how many different dishes there are," said Ms. Sabogal with a smile. "I didn’t know you could so many things with peaches."
Other tasters were fans of the more entrée-like options. Ryan Maniscalki and Pam Brozek, both of North Brunswick, both agreed ComfortFood’s chicken tacos slathered with peach pickled vegetable slaw were the best. Victor and Jane Sofield, of Levittown, Pennsylvania, also stopped by the festival on Sunday and were able to try all 10 dishes featured that afternoon — including the award-winning peach wine.
"We were looking for a place to go and get lunch," explained Mr. Sofield. "We came here and felt like we got eight lunches."
While his wife favored ComfortFood’s chicken tacos, Mr. Sofield took a liking to the Pub and Kitchen’s dish which featured sausages with grilled corn tossed in buffalo yogurt, Korean chili flakes, pecorino cheese, raw honey and chives.
"Just the way it was cooked — you could tell it was homemade," he added.
Friends Russell Stone and Jackie Kraft, of Toms River, opted to check out the festival when the clouds deterred them from embarking on their weekly beach day. It appeared they soon forgot about the sand and waves when they ran into their friends and discovered Emily’s Café’s tortilla chips and peach and mango salsa.
"We’re living it up — and the peach salsa is delicious," Mr. Stone said.
For the chefs, the festival was also a great way to meet the community and showcase their mastery of using local farm products. Eno Terra’s sous chef, Frank Caponi Jr., said 95 percent of its cristini with spicy greens, sliced peaches, panchetta onion and balsamic marmalade was made with all local ingredients.
"The balsamic marmalade is an awesome dish by itself and then we just came up with something nice and light for the hot weather," said Mr. Caponi. "And to promote local farms is really good; at Eno Terra, that’s what we do — we promote local farms as much as possible."
In addition to the special tasting, the peach festival also featured owner Pam Mount’s free canning class and the New Jersey Peach Promotion Council’s Peach Pie Contest. The only entrant, Kathy Russo of Hopewell, automatically won with her peach blueberry crisp topped with almond crumbs.
"I hope it’s worthy," she added with a laugh. "This is my favorite time of year and peaches and corn from Terhune are my most favorite things in the world."
Ms. Russo won a $50 gift certificate to Terhune and will go on to compete at the state level with a different variation of her submission.
The peach festival also included wagon rides, live music, and plenty of children’s games and activities. While many kids were trying their hand at the various games and riding the pedal tractors, Quinn, 2, was with his dad Brice Overcash, of East Windsor, checking out some of the farm’s chickens.
"We’ve been here a couple of times and we wanted to bring Quinn out to look at the animals, pick blueberries and listen to the live music," said Mr. Overcash.

