Pots of Applesauce

For girl's night tonight (Martin's night class evening), Merry chose to watch part of Little Women. I sat next to her, tired out from my apple-baking marathon. Today at the Farmer's Market, I purchased four bushels of MacIntosh apples. My regular apple lady, who usually has truck loads of multiple varieties all autumn, had to dig to find a couple bags of Gala, a variety I prefer for eating. First my favorite local apple growers were hit with an untimely freeze, then with a frost and finally with hail. While I worried briefly about my own apple-baking/saucing supply for winter, they must worry about how they will pay bills. A life of a farmer, as a friend pointed out, is not any easy one. But the friendly woman across the table smiled as usual. Her face is beautiful and I can only surmise its textures reflect the orchard she loves and tends, etched as it is with laugh lines, warmed and tanned by the sun.

Elspeth begged loudly for an apple. I loaded heaving bags of blushing red and green apples into her stroller and she and Merry bit happily into Galas, with the crisp crunch! that only marks fresh autumn apples.

This afternoon, encouraged along by NPR (until I got sick of NPR voices) and a long conversation with my sister, I peeled, cored, and chopped the first bushel, and then I baked a quadruple recipe of my favorite Dutch apple bread, which tastes far more like cake than any boring old bread. I use a recipe from More With Less, but I doctor it with half oil, half whole wheat pastry flour, extra cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves, exta apples, and a healthy coating of cinnamon sugar. It makes a creamy, buttery batter that you feel like eating even before it lands in the oven.

Martin took the girls to the park, dropped them hastily in the door, and took off. By this time apple bread covered the stove top, and Elspeth managed to crumble a piece all over the downstairs rooms. Just in time to save Elspeth from bedtime (she was overjoyed and proceeded to wreak mischief, turning on my coffee maker, dumping water out of a pail and over her feet, and demanding a lollipop), a good friend arrived at the door. Her little girl clambered up our front stairs with a gallon of homemade apple cider. Evidently her grandfather had recently found a few old apple trees on their property; they had chopped the apples and cranked out frothy, dark cider.

My pot of browning apple pieces sat ready on the stove. Just before Little Women, I added some cider and cinnamon and left the apples to simmer. Soon the house filled with a deep, earthy scent. Due to my comatose state in front of the TV, I actually let the apples overboil just a tad, but the only harm that did was to create a smoother applesauce than I usually turn out. I mixed in some brown sugar and a little more cinnamon, and Merry and I shared a warm bowl of apple sauce--tangy and perfect as pie filling--just before bedtime.

Only three more bushels to go. Before I hit the other orchard, that is. I heard Little Green Apples actually mixes different varieties in the same bushel. Hoorah for autumn, for Pennsylvania and its apple orchards! Hoorah for Johnny Appleseed! Hoorah for big freezers!