When I set out to write my English honors project at Calvin, I had every intention of writing a scholarly essay on Macbeth. I’d done plenty of prep work; I had my readers picked out. Then, a few days before proposals were due, I balked. I went to my advisor, made a couple of other stops in the English office, and suddenly found myself with four short days to write up a whole new proposal for a creative project on food writing.

That was one of the best decisions I made in college. I got to spend months cooking, reading, and writing about food — as homework! (And, guess what? I still managed to succeed in grad school without the experience of spending half a year writing a critical essay.) I churned out a few essays I could feel good about (one even got a second life in Perspectives post-graduation), learned a lot about the writing process, and cemented my love for good food.

While grad school more than Calvin led me deep into the world of ramen and frozen burritos, as I spend some time between masters degrees (more on that in a later post, perhaps), my schedule allows a lot of flexibility, so I can make time for something like building a peach pie from scratch.

Now, I’ve had a big old crush on peaches for several years. They’re incredibly sensuous (or…sensual?) fruits, with their heady fragrance, syrupy sweetness, and layers of texture. I almost always eat them over the kitchen sink because I almost always make a mess, dribbling sticky juice down my chin and hand and forearm.

I eat a lot of peaches during that dog-days-of-summer window when they’re ripe and delicious, but this year I decided I had to make a peach pie before that day where suddenly the peaches are gone and summer is over. So on a Monday afternoon, with a pork roast in the crock pot and Alison Krauss crooning from my laptop speakers, I floured up my counter and went to work.

Fruit pies can be kind of a pain to make. Maybe some of you don’t think so, and will (perhaps justly) out me as a lazy baker, but all that peeling or poaching and slicing and pitting and mixing is long and sticky work. I also like to make my own crust, which tacks on a bunch of extra time (but is so worth it — yum!). Even so, there’s something about the hands-on work that I love: incorporating butter and flour with my fingertips, using my hands to mix up the peaches and the sugar, putting together a lattice top. It’s all the textural fun of play-doh and finger paints with a far more rewarding payoff.

I felt pretty proud of that pie when I stuck it in the oven. I still felt proud of it when some of the juices overflowed and the smell of baking pie took on a definite burnt-sugar air. Most of all, I felt great when I sliced it open after the agonizing process of letting it cool completely and firm up, and found that the bottom crust, which I hadn’t blind baked, was light and dry — one of my take-aways from watching The American Baking Competition over the summer is that nobody likes a soggy bottom.

I got my last golden taste of summer. I lingered over the sultry sweetness of that slice of pie…and then had peach pie and hot black coffee for breakfast three mornings in a row — the luxury of adulthood.

Now, as Labor Day has come and gone, and a brisk morning breeze sometimes reminds me that September has come and is bringing October swiftly in its wake, I’m bidding farewell to peach season. The changing season tastes a little different this fall — it’s the first in…a very long time that I’m not launching into a new school year. I’m glad, this year, for other ways of marking seasons, especially when those ways are this pretty (and palatable) as a peach pie.

Note: I’m a recipe-follower. I didn’t make anything up for this pie. The recipe I used came straight from Smitten Kitchen, a really spectacular food blog.

Alissa Anderson

Alissa Goudswaard Anderson (’10) lives with her husband Josh in New York City, where she is earning her Master of Divinity at General Theological Seminary. Alissa enjoys private kitchen dance parties, big Midwestern thunderstorms, and perusing other peoples’ bookshelves. For more, find her online at www.episcotheque.wordpress.com or tweet her @episcotheque.