Pech Pie

Peaches might seem like an odd post subject for March, but I wanted to round up the Great Out-Of-Season Turkey Project by highlighting our dessert: peach pie. I have an odd relationship with peaches. Ripe, in-season peaches are one of my top five fruits of all time, and when they are widely available, I'm confronted with utter gastro-confusion. The desire to eat as many juicy ripe peaches out of hand as possible usually overwhelms the motivation to actually cook with them. Peach desserts have never been a big part of my repertoire. The fact that my family inhales every peach that hits the door doesn't enable the kind of contemplative recipe-selection process that usually precedes a hotsy-totsy cooking project for me. Last summer, I tried something new. I bought a few cases of peaches from a local fruit-seller that carries perfect, softball-sized peaches every summer. They are pricey but fail-safe. No hard, green fruit that never ripens, no mealy flavorless blobs. Every peach is perfection, nestled in its little cardboard nest. The sign which advertises these peaches, however, is irritating as all hell: "Chin Drippin' Peaches." Without even getting to that cutesy "n'", the notion of letting the juice dribble freely down one's face is not one I can really get behind.

BUT I bought a couple of ginormous boxes last summer and spent well over a week cranking pies out of my kitchen as if they were Model-Ts. Most of them, I froze, using disposable pie tins and the largest freezer bags I could find. Ike, who was five at the time, labeled them. When cooked, they taste as fresh as if they were made that day. I appreciate the flavor of the peaches so much more in the middle of winter when their lush sweetness is not just delicious but totally out of step with the rest of cold-weather cuisine. Yumminess. More dessert-like posts to come.