With summer behind us and
the coming of fall, trees and gardens overflow with fruits and vegetables.
Whenever someone offers produce, even if I have no idea what to do with it, I
take them up on it. So after lunch at Sallie’s on Saturday when she offers
apples from her trees, I say yes and in less than a half hour we pick a couple
bags full. Most of the apples have been pecked by birds and some augered by
worms, but with a little trimming, they will be fine for cooking. Driving home,
images of pies and crisps and sauces fill my imagination while the car fills
with the fruit’s sweet winey perfume. Once home I leave the bags downstairs to
keep cool.
. . .
Next door, a crew of
maintenance guys are fully into their weed whackers and leaf blowers. The noise
breaks my concentration enough that I’m unable to get any fiction writing done
- that level of creativity requires peace and quiet. These guys show up twice
or three times a year so the disturbance is small potatoes. Nothing compared to
where I used to live, where the people next door had a crew for a full day
every week and actually had workers vacuum individual leaves of the shrubbery.
No kidding! One of those days, after hours of listening to the duet of shrieking
shop vacs I called the home owner to inquire how much longer this might go on.
She immediately launched into a riot act, screaming at me, “… it’s our damn
yard and we can have it the way we want!” and so on ad nausea projectum. Needless to say, I’m happy to have moved away
from that scene. Please note I did not call it a neighborhood.
Now as the guys work
next door I decide to leave the keyboard and make applesauce.
The upside to the pecks
and worms in the apples from Sallie’s is that they have not been sprayed with
any pesticides. I rinse them in the sink and start coring and cutting them up and
tossing the pieces into my 8 quart stock pot. Getting into the process I am
reminded of when as a kid, helping my mother do the same. Every fall she would
buy bushels of drops and for at least a full day the two of us would make applesauce.
Gallons of it, most of which would go in the freezer. In particular, I remember
operating the Foley food mill, a hand cranked device which forced the chunks of
cooked apples and skins through a sieve; cranking on that thing until my arm
hurt, then I’d switch to the other arm and on and on. But of course home made
applesauce whenever you wanted it over the following winter made it all
worthwhile.
When I flew the nest, my
mom gave me a Foley food mill which I dutifully lugged with me all over the
country until a few years ago, having never used it, gave it to good will. Picking
apples on Saturday, I thought, well, that wasn’t a very smart thing to do and
wondered out loud to Sallie how I might deal with the skins - they don’t cook
out and would remain tough and chewy. Sallie suggested using a blender,
something I do have.
I bought the blender
this past summer for one purpose - make frozen watermelon margaritas. When I
noticed this particular machine had a “Frozen Drink” button, well, that’s all I
needed to know. To good effect, microprocessors have found their way into
blenders, just load the pitcher with required ingredients, hold onto your hat
(and the blender) and hit that button. It launches into a song and dance;
clockwise, counterclockwise, slow, fast, slow, fast, faster and blazingly
faster and then without further adieu, shuts itself off. On a mid-July afternoon,
as the hot desert sun bears down without mercy, simply pour and enjoy. Ahhh…
One bag of apples cored
and chopped fills the stock pot and I set a low flame under it. Slowly it
begins to steam and the first time I open the lid to poke at the apples, oh,
the sweet smell! Interesting how our sense of smell is linked to our memory and
at this moment images of all that work in the kitchen with my mom, the long
hours at the stove and how we were a team comes so very close to being reality.
I get the blender set up
on the countertop and prepare to move on to the “Food Chop” button. Hit this
one and the blender slowly goes one way and then the other and so on until it
decides to stop. I make a few experimental runs and eventually learn it’s
happiest with no more than two big ladles full of steaming apples in the
pitcher. Even then, given the gooiness of the cooked apple glop, air pockets form
around the blade defeating the purpose. I get a wooden spoon to push the mess down
in blatant and reckless defiance of IMPORTANT SAFEGUARD # 5: “Keep hands and
utensils out of jar while blending to reduce the risk of Severe personal
injury.” Now really, is there anyone out there dumb enough to put their hands
in a running blender? I mean, c’mon. Even I
am smart enough to use a spoon, and in a rare flash of common sense strike upon
the notion a wooden one would be preferable to metal. So, like a cat going
after a goldfish I madly dab at the swirling applesauce with the spoon and after
two “Food Chop” cycles have an acceptably smooth puree. Smooth enough for me,
but then I like crunchy peanut butter on rye crisp, so we’ll see what everyone
else thinks of it. Speaking of rye crisp, I did hit the rotating blade with the
spoon now and then which kinda did a number on said spoon (sorry R), and
there’ll be some splinters in the sauce. But like rye crisp, this sauce will keep you regular.
The process which started
at 11:00 AM pretty much comes to a close at 5:00 PM, and I am whopped. The yard
guys next door are picking up their tools and loading their trucks and getting
out of here. I am divvying the hot applesauce into containers and lining them up
on the counter. They need to cool before going into the freezer. R and I go out
for a bite at Counter Culture - I’ve had enough cooking for one day. When we
get home I fill a shelf in the freezer with the containers of sauce. And
there’s a bowl full I put in the fridge.
This morning I decide to
have oatmeal and along with some milk, warm a half cup or so of the applesauce
in the microwave. At the right moment it all comes together, I put the blob of
steamy sauce in a little well I make in the oatmeal and pour on the milk and
sprinkle some walnut pieces on top. Mmm… those flavors, earthy, simple and
good, a great breakfast on this cool October morning.
