I don’t know about you, but for the last 10 months I’ve been waiting impatiently for peach season to
begin in Ohio.
Nothing wrong with ripe cherries or blueberries, and certainly a picnic isn’t a picnic without
watermelon. But there’s something unrivaled about a peach so ripe the juices just burst in every
direction when you take a bite.
It’s hard to improve on the perfection of nature, but Bowling Green’s Eleanor Conner has a recipe that
does the trick.
It’s her very-special peach upside-down pie.
"I love peaches. And there’s a lot of cinnamon and nutmeg in it, so it just has all these
ingredients I like," Conner said, listing reasons why this is a favorite recipe. "And it’s
pretty-looking."
This unusual variation on a peach pie is not just pretty, it looks like it took hours to bake.
But in fact, on a difficulty scale of 1 to 5 she gives it a 2. "Because you don’t peel the peaches;
it’s really easy.
"I would say 20 to 35 minutes prep time, at most," plus the required baking time.
A mother of two adult children, daughter Kate in Massachussets and son Christopher in Findlay, her three
grandkids are 16, 13 and 8.
With all her experience in cooking for a family, she got the recipe for the peach pie from an unlikely
source – a young college student.
"I’ve been retired like 15 years so it might have been 30 years ago! I was the secretary and in
charge of the environmental library (in BGSU’s Center for Environmental Programs) and she was one of the
students who worked there.
"Maybe I said some casual remark like ‘I prefer pies over cakes’ and she mentioned this recipe she
had."
The student explained that the recipe had been given to her by her own grandmother.
"I think I made it right away," which is how long it took to realize the recipe was going to
become her showcase dessert.
"I take it to potlucks, or if I have bridge I serve it. I never just make it for myself. It’s too
rich," Conner said with a laugh.
"I had to put the recipe on the computer because so many people asked me for it. Any time I serve it
for any group of people" she knows that will happen. "They all think it’s very good."
Conner often make peach upside-down pie at Christmas. Her children love it, although the grandkids don’t
request it yet, "they’re so finicky," and favor fare like mac and cheese or chicken fingers.

"Although my granddaughter Abby in kindergarten said in class her favorite foods were broccoli and
asparagus!"
Conner knows how it is; her own children were the same.
"When I was first married with kids I enjoyed cooking, but the kids got finicky and it wasn’t so
much fun.
"I love baking bread and pies, and every so often, I like the challenge of doing something
difficult. But just everyday cooking I don’t enjoy so much."
It’s much more fun to whip up a peach upside-down pie for one of her bridge groups.
One consists of members from St. Aloysius Church.
The other began as a special interest group of the University Women. "It’s still all the same
people. We’ve been playing 20-25 years, once a month.
"We’re good friends, we’ve played together so long."
Conner and her husband hailed from Tulsa, Okla., originally, moving to Portland, Ore. for grad school
"and then Sanford for his post-doc. They loved him, so we stayed seven years" before he took a
job at BGSU.
"We came here (from California) in December 1971. "We didn’t even have winter coats. A neighbor
knitted us caps for all four of us, in different colors. Those were bad winters then; lots of snow and
ice. I just wasn’t used to that. I wasn’t too fond of Bowling Green then," although her attitude
soon changed.
Conner’s own first job here was in BGSU provost’s office. Now retired, she’s busier than ever before.
"I do a lot of volunteer work – deliver Wheeled Meals, work at the food pantry, do Martha’s Kitchen
for St. Tom’s.
"I play the dulcimer with the Wood Co Dulcimers. We played at the fair on Senior Day. "
She also belongs to the Shakespeare Round Table, a venerable institution in Bowling Green.
But the Shakespeare ladies, alas, have never had the pleasure of her peach pie because "in their
105-year history they’ve never served dessert or even snacks" at the afternoon meetings. "We
don’t even serve coffee!"
The focus is strictly on the Bard.
For those ready to rush out to buy peaches for your own upside-down pie, Conner recommends "those
white peaches at Haslinger’s Orchard," if you can get them.
Of course, there is one hazard of good peaches.
"If the peaches are really juicy, that’s when it boils over. Usually I put a layer of foil under and
another over it and if it runs over just remove and replace the foil. Have the layer under, or it’s
going to be a mess cleaning it up."

Peach upside down pie
Pastry for 2-crust pie
2 T. butter
2/3 cup toasted, sliced almonds (4 oz.)
1/3 cup brown sugar
5 cups sliced peaches (about 8)
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
2 T. Tapioca (minute is best)
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1/4 tsp. cinnamon
Line a 9-inch pie plate with a 12-inch square of foil, letting excess hang over edge. Spread with the
softened butter. Sprinkle with the nuts and 1/3 cup brown sugar; press down. Fit bottom crust over nuts.
Slice peaches WITHOUT peeling. Mix with remaining ingredients and mound high in pastry shell. Fit top
crust over and crimp edges; prick. Brush lightly with milk.
Bake at 450 degrees for 10 minutes. Lower heat to 375 degrees and bake 35-40 minutes more. Cool. Invert
on saving plate. Remove foil.
Note: If you are using a glass pie plate, lower baking temperature 25 degrees and check occasionally that
butter/nuts/brown sugar mixture at bottom carmelizes but does not burn.