I stumbled across a group of blogging writers - Fog City Writer, The Contact Zone, Jade Park, Everything In Between, and Charlotte's Web - who are writing entries based on letters of the alphabet. Here's my first installment. I already know what I'm going to write for "Z," so I can't wait to get there!
A is for Apple
In New England, fall is apple time. People come from all over the country to view the fall foliage - mountains colored in a swaths of oranges, reds and yellow. Roadside stands selling bags of fresh apples, apple butter, apple sauce and apple cider dot the roadways. Tourists and locals alike enjoy steaming cups of hot spiced cider, filling their insides with a sweet warmth on the cool crisp days.
There were several apple trees on our property, which had been pasture before it had grown into the young forest that my parents cleared to build our home. These sprawling trees stood out among the younger pines, alder, and cherry trees that had grown straight up toward the light through the brush, reminding us that once animals had grazed there, and had sat under the trees for shade from the sun or shelter from the rains, and eaten the apples that fell from the trees.
The apples were abundant on two of our trees - the tree by the roadside had small, hard apples that turned red, and the larger tree by the house and green apples that were also bitter and hard. There was a third tree in the woods, surrounded by tall pines that had grown around it. The pines had blocked so much light from the tree that it no longer produced apples, but was alive enough for Papa to build a tree house for me in it.
These apples were not good for eating - not nearly as good as the apples we could get at the roadside stands, or at Windy Ridge Orchard a few miles away. Yet my resourceful parents could not let this free source of food go to waste - my mother would cook up huge batches of apple sauce and can it in mason jars. The apple sauce tasted distinctly different depending on which tree the apples came from, and needed extra sugar to make it more palatable. Because we did not apply any pesticides to the trees, many of the apples were wormy, and I admired my mother's patience in preparing them.
McIntosh are the quintessential New England apple variety. They are soft, crisp, sweet, juicy and slightly tangy all at once. The sensation of biting into a fresh McIntosh is distinct from all other apples, but can only be experienced for several months a year. Sadly, their softness makes them bruise easily and thus not travel or store very well.
In high school, fall for me was also defined by cross-country running, and the coach would often bring a white paper bag of apples to practice. After the run, we would rush to the apple bag and stand around eating our apples as we went through the motions of stretching, far more interested in absorbing the juicy crispness that hydrated us and replaced our blood sugar. In this age of electrolyte replacement drinks and packaged energy gels, I still think that the apple is the best post-workout recovery food. And a fantastic snack when cut up and covered with peanut butter.
