Apple of My Eye

all around the finger lakes-- As our good friend Gillian Welch sings:

Peaches in the summertime/
Apples in the fall/
If I can't have you all the time/
I don't want none at all

We have experienced peaches in the summertime, which means it is now time for apples here in upstate New York. You may be thinking: "Eh, apples." But that is because you, like me, were trained to skip over the waxy, mealy apples in the produce section. Now I say: "Yum! Apples!"

When K's and my parents were here, we all piled into the cars and headed over to a U-Pick orchard on Stillwell Road. We loved the variety here (we had previously picked at a place-- good apples-- but only three kinds). Here we could pick Courtlands, McIntosh, Empire, Crispins, Honeycrisps, Macouns (pretty! purple!), and some others that I am forgetting. With some many hands, we loaded up our bushel box pretty quickly and headed back to Caywood Station (but not before setting off my car alarm in the orchard-- awesome. Greenhorn Alert!) where Karen whipped up a Julia Child*-inspired crust and tucked our apples inside. I used to say "Eh, apple pie." Now I say: "YUM! Apple pie!"

Since Karen had some dough leftover from her first apple pie (despite having made a pie and two adorable tartlets), she whipped up another pie last night. YUM! Apple pie! In true Almanzo style, we breakfasted on pie and coffee, before heading off to the fields for a little back breaking labor. (More on that later). I plan to soon make an applesauce cake with the applesauce we made last night. Oh, Karen has also made an apple coffee cake.

Pie, cake, applesauce, these are but a few of the reasons Karen is the apple of my eye!

10/8/07