Dare to eat a peach[cake]

If the weather hasn't already made it clear that summer is raging in Baltimore, the phone call from my mother does. "Your father wanted peachcake," she told me last week, so she got to work making raised dough and slicing fruit.

I eat peaches out of politeness rather than enthusiasm, so no peachcake came my way. It went instead to my parents' neighbors, who promptly made a pot of tea and dug some ice cream out of the freezer. The combination was marvelous, they told us.

Baltimore Sun columnist Jacques Kelly has some very definite ideas about peachcake, which he shared in this past weekend's edition. Several years ago, I visited Sharon Hooper and her cousin, Lou Sahlender, of Hoehn's Bakery to see how they make their peachcake. The bakery's website reports that they're making peachcake now, so if peaches are your thing, go and get some while the time is ripe.