Difficulty Level: Easy

My mother has a magic touch as a baker and regularly dispenses tins of magnificent cookies, cake and pies to lucky family members. The day after my son was born I called her and she was making cookies for him. I pointed out that at the age of 23 or so hours, he was unlikely to be able to eat them. She said "I'm a grandmother now, and grandmothers bake cookies." Now that he is 23 years old, he eats her cookies at every opportunity.

When my mother and mother-in-law were both coming to dinner last week I felt I needed to make dessert, although we normally don't have it. My mother views dinner as something to endure in order to get to the sweets. I had just bought my last basket of peaches of the season, and peach pie is one of her favorites. Of course, I wanted to use her recipe and when I asked her for it she knew it without having to look it up.

I neglected to follow rule number one of baking which my mother taught me as a child. Put all of the ingredients out on the counter before you begin. I had the peaches peeled and the pie crusts ready when I realized that I only had 1/4 cup of sugar. I ended up making up the difference with brown sugar so the flavor was a bit different, but it was an excellent pie.

INGREDIENTS