Pilgrimages to the mountains this fall by my grandparents have yielded this Farmer with apples aplenty. Pies, cakes, and tarts have abounded this season and finally, after much persistence i.e. nagging and
begging on my part, Mimi has made her Apple Butter.
This delicacy has a longstanding place in my memory of warmth and delight, for Mema, Mimi’s mother, would make this and the smell and taste bring back memories of her. She would fill dough with this apple concoction and bake apple turnovers or fry apple fritters. Mimi has perfected the recipe and we use it on breads, biscuits, poundcake, or simply as dessert itself. I take only a spoonful at a time, yet, still, the jar keeps diminishing in volume. I suppose it is the spoonfuls throughout the day that cause the diminishment.
This sauce is that good – you’ll find yourself sampling right off the stove and right out of the fridge… hot or cold, warm or cool, Mimi’s Apple Butter will surely become a favorite. With the holidays fast approaching, jar some apple butter to give to your neighbors, friends, and loved ones, that is, if you can bear to share!
The first time my sister cooked for me, we were both in our 20s and
living together in my 500 square foot studio apartment on the Upper West
Side of Manhattan. It was the day I had quit my job working in book
publicity and had decided to go back to freelance film production work.
My sister, Alexandra, having just finished up her first transfer
semester at the Fashion Institute of Technology, wanted to make us a
home-cooked meal to celebrate our big life changes. She was already
cooking by the time I arrived at our apartment that evening. I smelled
pasta boiling and lots of lemon and basil. I started over towards the
blender to take a sniff, but she shooed me away. “It’s almost done. Go
and sit down.”
Naively, I asked for larks. The grocery clerk seemed perplexed.
Everyone in America has a childhood pickle memory, some great memories of the perfect pickle and some less notable. When my sister and I were kids there was a small pickle company located a couple of towns away and all the local grocery stores in the area had a 55 gallon wooden pickle barrel of their pickles with tongs and plastic bags for you to help yourself. On the side of the barrel was a sign that offered a free pickle to children under 7 years old, a brilliant marketing campaign to capture the next generation of customers. Well, they had me as a loyal customer after only one pickle!
It was a cool, rainy fall day at our store in Maine many years ago. My sister was running errands and I was alone at our store. A well-waxed black truck pulled into the driveway and parked way too close to our building. I admit I was a bit nervous as I watched for the person or persons to get out from behind the blacked-out windows. The door opened slowly and a huge single foot appeared from under the door and slowly another emerged. The single occupant was the tallest and biggest person I had every seen in my life and he was headed for our front door. Tom was 6 feet, 8 inches and weighed around 600 pounds, seriously huge.
