Alright, I’ve run out of reasons to procrastinate, so let’s get to it. Let’s talk pie. Like, extraordinary, intense, jaw-dropping, labor of love pie. That, is what this is. It is no joke, no make-me-on-a-whim-because-you-suddenly-got-a-hankerin-for-a-really-good-wedge-of-fluffy-banana-cream-pie. This baby takes time and patience; it’s definitely a celebratory pie if there ever was one and demands you to scream out after landing it gracefully on top of your highest pedestal for all to see, NAILED IT! Because you actually will. I have complete faith in you.

Unlike the more “traditional” banana cream — the one that involves pudding and wafer cookies, a banana and a pile of cool whip — this pie has five major components that each makes you invest your valuable nap time minutes (read: you will be making your own peanut butter, pastry cream and bourbon caramel, you can do it!). On an everyday basis I would be telling you streamline!, reduce it to one bowl!, substitute with things you already have stocked in your pantry! (peanut butter, I’m talking to you) but in this case, in this rare worth-it-to-spend-a-few-days-slaving moment, I want to tell you to forget it all just this once and do it the long way.

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I’ve been MIA lately, but you understand, right? A teetering tottering tower of wanna-be toddler — but still very much my baby — can be quite a handful. All eyes, hands, arms and legs must be on call, at the ready to save all our valuable things like the TV we keep meaning to mount to the wall. Baby proofing should be our top priority though we insist we can postpone for another couple of weeks. Until, you know, he is really mobile and not wobbling and tumbling around.  In between the TV save, the leather couch zerberts, and the banging of a little toy hammer into the wall leaving permanent marks and dents, I was able to squeeze in a delightful fall crisp. Priorities, of course, means crisp comes before baby proofing. Don’t tell my husband.

I like to fill fall with braises and coq au vins and pumpkin muffins, giving ourselves an abundance of comfort food to prepare us for the dreary, dead, doldrums of winter that inevitably lie ahead. Despite my cooking redirection to the slow and hearty, the fiery red leaves that fall to the ground, and the dip in temperature that demands a thermostat check, fall is never fall until the apples come out. Until an apple pie or buckle or strudel or crisp is baking in the oven and wafting the official scent of fall around our house permeating every crevice with its decent. Until wassail is gently gurgling on the stove, or an overly large sweater clad me is dipping apple wedges into warm gooey caramel, or the tot is eating perfect applesauce — that is when fall has officially been recognized and embraced in our house. Luckily this year I squeezed it in before Thanksgiving.

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For months I have been planning and researching (read: pintresting) the perfect birthday cake. It was going to be hard to top my favorite. It has orange juice and orange peel ringlets, is incredibly moist and spongy, and has the world’s most perfect cream cheese frosting draped against its frame — all of it making my self control  that much more unwilling to resist its temptation. But who said birthdays are for the disciplined? Not me. Not him.

I was determined, unrelenting, fierce. And I found it. It was cake. It was also ice cream. In fact the cake part was nonexistent. It was just ice cream in the cake form. It was chocolate. It was also peanut butter. It was chocolate peanut butter ice cream cake, and it was going to be my also-favorite cake. That is, until I discovered the inconsiderate lack of peanut butter ice cream — the main ingredient, the key component, the soul of my cake — in the freezer section.

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The round of summer birthday celebrations for our family kicks off late July and keeps rolling until mid-August. Last week my father in-law just had his (old man) birthday. I can say that because he actually is not over 50. Yet. Plus I am the beloved daughter (in-law, but who goes by titles) who can pretty much get away with anything. Don’t worry. My halo is still very shiny and polished and glowing since I have yet to tarnish my good standing with my favorite only in-laws, but as usual I brought dessert. Last year it was an insanely ridiculous tower of chocolate cake coated in no less than five cups of (egg-less) chocolate chip cookie dough frosting. It was epic. And almost ruined my love affair with cookie dough.

This year he wanted apple crisp. I, of course, took ample liberties with this crisp and added vanilla beans and brown butter and brandy and doubled the crispy topping so much so that it was half apple, half crisp, half the best thing I ever ate. But let’s not get carried away. Like I did when I slew home 1 peck (about 15 pounds) of peaches on Sunday. Why so much? They were free (my parents picked a bushel from a local orchard and gave me some of their abundance because, seriously, what two people could eat a bushel of ripe peaches before they go bad? Four people, is much more probable. Ha!) Also, they were free. Ok, so that was my only reason. So get ready for a peach overload. You don’t mind, do you?

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After a week of simple cooking, I must say it has freed me up to do oh so many things. 1. Not going to the store to buy a wig to patch up bald spots (bad recipes, hair pulling, you know the gist). 2. Swapping ‘A Bat Invaded Our House and This Is How We Freaked Out’ stories with my mother-in-law. 3. Zombie-ing out on Pintrest as my poor pantry (the one that has a chest of five drawers and a waist high, 3-shelved book case to hold my life’s necessities upon) is getting remodeled and oh, I have so many ideas. 4. Working on reorganizing, revamping, updating, and giving an overall face lift to the red spoon a surprise (shhhhh). And 5. Making a perfect pound cake.

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