The month of peaches

August may be blistering as hell here (we're looking at seven straight days in the 90s this week) but it's also the month of peaches, so I'll forgive it anything.

For one, I'll pardon August the fact that the cicadas start shaking their maracas and sounding like a loose pack of rattlesnakes at 8 in the morning. That's one way you know that the day will be a scorcher.

I'll even absolve August of the fact that my miramelindas end each day wilted and unhappy because of the relentless heat and humidity and I must come to the rescue with the hose almost every other day.

Oh, and lest I forget, I'll even write off the fact that in August the cicadas begin to leave their horrid mummified shells stuck to everything from my car's tire to the front door, making me shriek every time I think one might even graze me (even though it's totally dead).

I'll overlook anything that's August-like because of the peaches.

Last night I made a Belle of Georgia open-face peach pie with fresh Ohio peaches that my bestest-of-friends KG got for me at the farmer's market.

"That sounds like it comes from Martha Stewart," she said when I told her the pie's name.

And she was right. The recipe is from my trusty Martha Stewart Pies & Tarts book, which was my introduction into the world of making pies many years ago as part of a pie-making kit my husband gave me.

The Belle of Georgia (in this case it's more like a Belle of Ohio) is a gloriously flirty pie because it relies on the beauty and ripeness of sweet unpeeled sliced peaches to do the work for it. The flaky buttery crust becomes the icing on the cake (which in this case is, of course, a pie).

I hope KG likes her half of the peach Belle. My half was pretty scrumptious when I had a slice today, although (truthfully) the peaches would have been just as good, if not better, on their own.

Fresh peaches are one very persuasive reason for putting up with August, a month so parched and humid here that it becomes a fitting prelude for fall because by the time it's over we can't help but yearn for cooler days and nights.

But August, as long as I get to revel in your peaches, I'll excuse all of your cranky Augustness.