A Tart Summer Slice

by Carrie Frye

The past few summers, when it hits mid-June or so, my husband starts making the pie from Nora Ephron’s 1983 novel Heartburn: 

… but here is the best peach pie we made: Put 1 ¼ cups flour, ½ teaspoon salt, ½ cup butter and 2 tablespoons sour cream into a Cuisinart and blend until they form a ball. Pat out into a buttered pie tin, and bake 10 minutes at 425°. Beat 3 egg yolks slightly and combine with 1 cup sugar, 2 tablespoons flour and ⅓ cup sour cream. Pour over 3 peeled, sliced peaches arranged in the crust. Cover with foil. Reduce the oven to 350° and bake 35 minutes. Remove the foil and bake 10 minutes more, or until the filling is set.

He usually uses five peaches (even six or seven if they’re small) but otherwise he sticks to the recipe. The pie is scrumptious—the fruit globby and golden, and the crust with just the right tang of salt. It is a pleasure to eat a slice cold from the refrigerator as the sun is almost but not quite down, around 8 p.m. or so. Windows open, shadows deepening, nadir of being shellacked by the afternoon’s heat in the rearview mirror.