A Peach of a Guy Makes a Fine Cobbler

Try as they might, the fast feeders and franchised fryers just cannot cook the way mother did.

“Most start off pretty good,” goes the gourmand gospel according to William H. Gore Sr. “Then they make a little money and start getting bigger and cut a little here, cut something else there until quality falls off.

“Thing is, once you stop loving it, you stop making it good. You get money crazy. Me, I care more about keeping things right. That’s why I make the world’s best peach cobbler, no doubt about it.”

There are ladies in Lancaster who agree with the cobbler. So do the wives of Rancho Cucamonga. Also Clancy’s Crab Broiler in Glendale, Dora’s Sandwich Shop in Pasadena, most office parties in Altadena and several social dos in San Marino . . . and whoever else gets a fix from munching the 100 cobblers, from bite size to table top, made and sold daily at the Cobbler Factory, the sweetmeat mecca of William H. Gore Sr.

But call him Bill. He will be 80 this month. He used to be the maintenance man at Pasadena’s Academy Theater with a catering business (“weddings, birthdays--even roast pigs for the big parties”) on the side. Then Bill retired, didn’t like that too well and attacked idleness by starting some heavy research into re-creating from taste-memory the cobblers that his mother, back home in Indiana, had made by instinct.

It is entirely likely that Alexander Fleming developed penicillin faster.

“I worked on this for one solid year before I was ready to sell one,” Bill recalls. “I experimented with one crust, two crusts . . . with lard, without lard. . . . I was looking for a perfect cobbler, a fantastic cobbler, a delicious cobbler that when you eat it you want more. And more.”

Nine years ago, eureka! The ingredients fell together and were kneaded into place and the filling of Gore’s Compleat Cobbler is no industrial secret. It’s peaches (or apples, cherries, berries and rhubarb) plus margarine, cinnamon and honey with everything stewing in its own juices.

The formula for the single crust, however, is held tighter than the combination to Ft. Knox.

“I’ll tell no one,” Bill vows. “Not my children, not even my wife. I will say that it contains no preservatives, no animal fat and will last unrefrigerated for three days.”

With his product in place, Bill quickly found a place for his product. He rented a store that was more of a walk-in closet on Catalina Avenue alongside the Academy Theater.

Coffee. Soft drinks. Wife Lena’s chocolate chip cookies. And for true believers, his seductive, naughty, Circean cobblers that are as much ambrosia as they are a Hoosier heritage.

His is a layered family operation. Four generations in fact. The store opens at 10 a.m., but Bill opens the kitchen at 5 to make pastry for early orders. Lena comes in later. Then daughter Rosenna and son Bill Jr. and his wife, Willie, and their daughter, Wendy, may arrive.

Usually two Gores in the store. Always a dozen on tap. And after school, Cittrice and Melinda might wander in to help. They’re Bill’s great-granddaughters.

“Everybody should have a life that mostly is something they love to do,” is another of Bill’s wisdoms. “Making cobblers is exactly what I want to do; I love it and that’s the best ingredient there is.

“Home cooking in my family was always the best, because it was done by people who loved to cook. It didn’t matter how long it took. . . . They did it and it was perfect because it was their joy, not their business . . . and it’s the joy that produces quality.”

There are times--such as the recent order for 1,350 bite-size cobblers--when Bill will slave over a hot Garland stove for 18-hour days. Some of the family most of the days are baking for 12 hours to keep up with orders large (a 12-by-20-inch cobbler, service for 30, for $24) and small (a 4-by-6 incher, service for two, for $5), to go and to be delivered.

The factory is dark Sunday and Monday.

“We go to church on Sundays,” Bill said.

Add divine to the pedigree of the perfect cobbler.

The Cobbler Factory, 33 N. Catalina Ave., Pasadena; 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., Tuesday through Saturday. Call: (818) 449-2152.