Peaches.

No, not that kind of Peaches. The kind that you eat. There is a store - Brennan's - here in Madison that posts a sign every summer advertising "Chin Drippin Peaches." Despite their failure to use the appropriate folksy apostrophe after the second "n" in this phrase, I usually buy a case every year. A case = lots and lots of peaches. I like to make them into pies, which I then freeze for baking later in the fall and winter, when it's a pretty neat trick to produce for one's dinner guests a delicious peach pie that tastes like it's August. The project started auspiciously, with the case of peaches being on sale for $5 less than usual. Then I got myself a Corporate Iced Latte, which gave me enough hyper energy to make lattice-top pies while listening to one of the best compilation albums in my collection - "Rockabilly Riot!". Do not - I repeat, DO NOT, omit that exclamation point. Punctuation, then, is the theme for this post. When my husband came home from work, I am sure he thought I was having some sort of psychotic break, listening to Fifties music ("Baby, Let's Play House" is on the disc) and baking! Baking! Baking! In my cheery red apron. It was a "Mad Men" moment, if you will. Three pies later, only half of the case of peaches has been scalded, skinned and chopped up. Wait, isn't that how they used to punish treason in the original thirteen colonies? The one peach pie I baked fresh came out perfectly, due to nothing but dumb luck. How can you know in advance how much thickener-of-choice (I use potato starch) to add in order to avoid soupy pie? And how to fend off the rapacious family that wants to eat the pie before it has had time to cool and set? It's really just a blind guess for me, but this time the cards fell in my favor and the pie consistency was spot on. I've come down from the caffeine high and am wondering what to do with the rest of the freakin' peaches.