That one time, when I baked a peach pie and it tasted like summer.

Last week I went to the local farmer's market and got a big bunch of fresh peaches. I have a hard time buying fresh fruit because it never gets eaten before it goes bad. But all I could think about was making the perfect peach pie. And that is just what I did.

I was actually a little obsessed with making a pie. All because of pie week and this story. After I bought the peaches, I had to run all kinds of other errands, but I could not wait to get home and bake. I don't know if I was more enthralled with the idea of eating the delicious and beautiful dessert or the process of baking the pie and being proud of the finished product.

First, I looked up a recipe. I pretty much always use allrecipes.com I read in one of the reader's comments that I should blanch the peaches to remove the skin. It worked perfectly. Then I sliced up the peaches. Then I added the cinnamon, flour and sugar.

I had intended to make my own crust, just like in the story above, but I just didn't have time that day so I used a pillsbury crust (shhhhhhh). After pouring the pie filling into the crust and sliding it into the oven, the whole house smelled like warm peaches.

I had just a little bit of filling and a little bit of crust leftover so I made a mini pie in a dish to enjoy hot and fresh since I was saving the pie for the 4th of July.

The hot, fresh mini pie was the perfect.

The next day my friend Martha came over and we spent the day working on new art projects for her shop and for some classes. We ate lunch. And then it was pie time.

But since I only used 10 of my peaches peaches for the pie.....

I also made peach sun tea.

And ate fresh juicy peaches.

The peaches were also used in a special hot sauce concoction with peppers from the garden.

One very special peach even made its way to a park bench in front of the Nelson Atkins for a special nutella and iced tea picnic on Sunday. But half of it got dropped and was quickly overtaken by ants.

And last night, I ate the very last peach, in a bowl with some home-whipped cream, topped with cinnamon and sugar, and mixed with fresh blackberries.

Summer is my new favorite.