apple recipes

[review + recipe] Granny Smith Was Not An Apple by Sarah Glenn Fortson and Kris Aro McLeod

~ jama ~ 20 Comments

Happy National Apple Month!

Time to wrap your lips around apple pie, crumble, crisp, pandowdy, buckle, slump, cobbler and dumpling. Inhale the heavenly fragrance of cinnamon and nutmeg. Sip some warm cider. When it comes to apples, they can’t be beat for variety and versatility.

What’s your favorite type of apple? I’m partial to Red Delicious, Golden Delicious, and Granny Smith because they’re pretty much available year round. Have you ever wondered whether Granny Smith was a real person?

I recently found out in this crunchy picture book biography, Granny Smith Was Not An Apple: The Story of Orchardist Maria Ann Smith by Sarah Glenn Fortson and Kris Aro McLeod (Peter Pauper Press, 2023).

Back in the 1800’s, Maria Ann Smith, an English “tough to the core” itinerant worker and orchardist, struggled to find work when manual laborers were being replaced with faster, more efficient farm equipment.

Since she and her husband could barely support their family, Maria Ann helped deliver babies in her village (historically, midwives were called ‘Granny’). She received payment in the form of food and clothing, then eventually worked in an apple orchard, where she learned about grafting and harvesting.

One day, two foreign agents arrived at the orchard looking for experienced laborers to work in Australia with a free voyage. Ignoring her neighbors’ warnings not to go, Maria and her family boarded the ship to Australia, enduring the arduous 4-month journey during which her five children fell ill. Maria kept her spirits up by thinking about a better life.

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a tasty bite of “Pomology” by Kim Roberts

~ jama ~ 49 Comments

Have you ever received a cryptic message, only to spend the next few minutes trying to figure out what it actually means?

D.C. area poet Kim Roberts received a text from her housemate that inspired her to write this witty, intriguing poem. So much depends on the sender . . . and what the receiver wants to hear. 🙂

“Still Life with Apple II” by Jos Van Riswick (oil on panel)
POMOLOGY
by Kim Roberts

I will eat the apple
read Stephen’s note this morning.
He is volunteering to play Eve.

He wrote, I will eat the apple
—but there are no apples in the house.
We have no lascivious Honeycrisp,

no bonny Braeburn, no upright Baldwin.
We’re out of spry Granny Smiths,
the skulking Northern Spy,

or the mysterious Pink Lady.
Stephen does have an Adam’s apple
and I have an Apple computer,

but you can’t compare apples and oranges.
The note said, I will eat the apple.
Perhaps Stephen’s chasing out the doctors.

Perhaps he’s not falling far from the tree.
Or he’s already eaten from the tree of knowledge:
in Latin, malum means both apple

and evil. I think Stephen is sending a warning.
He means, I will protect you.
He writes, I will eat the apple.

~ Originally published in Poem-a-Day, August 2017 by the Academy of American Poets
“Adam and Eve” by Edvard Munch (1909)

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“Apples in a Basket” by Levi Wells Prentice (oil on canvas)

This is just to say, I’m happy Kim figured out what Stephen was trying to tell her, but . . . what if the sender had been one of my poet friends? What were they really trying to tell me?

I will eat the apple (we seem to be out of plums) ~ William Carlos Williams

I will eat the apple (I have had too much of apple-picking) ~ Robert Frost

I will eat the apple (peaches are too risky) ~ T.S. Eliot

I will eat the apple (that is all ye need to know) ~ John Keats

I will eat the apple (to peel or not to peel, that is the question) ~ Shakespeare

I will eat the apple (judge tenderly of me) ~ Emily Dickinson

I will eat the apple (a man and a woman and an apple are one) ~ Wallace Stevens

I will eat the apple (a strain of the Earth’s sweet being in the beginning in Eden’s garden) ~ Gerard Manley Hopkins

I will eat the apple (be astonished and tell about it) ~ Mary Oliver

I will eat the apple (to follow my inner moonlight) ~ Allen Ginsberg

I will eat the apple (like a complete unknown)~ Bob Dylan

I will (not only)eat (but hold in my heart) the apple – E. E. Cummings

Now, when Mr Cornelius writes, I will eat the apple,

I know he actually means, I will eat the apple galette.

Want one? 🙂

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friday feast: fly soup and apple brownies

~ jama ~ 57 Comments

Please help yourself to a cup of tea and an apple brownie (spiders and centipedes optional).

On this crisp and clear Halloween Eve, we’re serving up a tasty poem by London-based author Elli Woollard.

I love noshing at her wonderful blog, Taking Words for a Stroll, which is a gold mine of fun, whimsical, silly and nonsensical rhymes, sure to put a smile on your face and make you want to indulge in some wordplay of your own.

One never knows just what Elli will write about next — ducks? vikings? cats? farting mermaids? I admit I was first drawn to her foodie poems. Who could resist such titles as “Kitchen Bullies,” “Feeling Like Cake,” “Best Biscuit Race”, “The Joys of Toast”? Here’s a poet who’ll riff on cheese even though she doesn’t personally care for it. Oh, and did you know there’s a “Shortage of L’s”? Nasty business, that. I don’t ike it one bit. 🙂

When I saw “There’s a Fly in My Soup,” I knew I just had to share it here. Soup — my middle name! And since it’s almost Halloween and all, it’s a good time to swallow a few flies, spiders and other creatures with rascally relish. Bugs, birds and goats never tasted so good.

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dorie greenspan’s custardy apple squares

~ jama ~ 12 Comments

You’ve got last minute guests coming for dinner and you need to whip up a quick and easy dessert.

Or maybe you’ve already made your Thanksgiving pumpkin and pecan pies, but need a little extra sweet something for holiday weekend guests.

What’s an adorable, well-intentioned host like you to do?

Ta da! Dorie Greenspan to the rescue with her Custardy Apple Squares!

 

You’ll likely have all the ingredients on hand already for this recipe; this baby can be eaten warm or cold, and it’s also good for breakfast. 🙂

This is just one of the goodies included in Dorie’s latest cookbook, Baking Chez Moi (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2014). I just love Dorie and this book is definitely on my holiday wish list. 🙂

Check out the video:

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CUSTARDY APPLE SQUARES

  • 3 medium juicy, sweet apples (Gala, Fuji), peeled
  • 1/2 cup all purpose flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 2 large eggs, at room temperature
  • 1/3 cup sugar
  • pinch of fine sea salt
  • 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
  • 6 tablespoons whole milk at room temperature
  • 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled
  • confectioner’s sugar, for dusting (optional)

1. Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.

2. Butter an 8-inch square baking pan.

3. Slice the apples from top to bottom using a mandoline, Benriner or a sharp knife, turning the fruit as you reach the core. The slices should be about 1/16th inch thick—elegantly thin, but not so thin that they’re transparent and fragile. Discard the cores.

4. Whisk the flour and baking powder together in a small bowl.

5. Working in a large bowl with a whisk, beat the eggs, sugar and salt together for about 2 minutes, until the sugar just about dissolves and, more important, the eggs are pale. Whisk in the vanilla, followed by the milk and melted butter.

6. Turn the flour into the bowl and stir with the whisk until the batter is smooth. Add the apples to the bowl, switch to a flexible spatula and gently fold the apples into the batter, turning everything around until each thin slice is coated in batter. Scrape the batter into the pan and smooth the top as evenly as you can—it will be bumpy; that’s its nature.

7. Bake for 40 to 50 minutes, or until golden brown, uniformly puffed— make sure the middle of the cake has risen—and a knife inserted into the center comes out clean. Transfer the cake to a rack and allow to cool for at least 15 minutes.

8. Using a long chef’s knife, cut the cake into 8 squares in the pan (being careful not to damage the pan), or unmold the cake onto a rack, flip it onto a plate and cut into squares. Either way, give the squares a dusting of confectioners’ sugar before serving, if you’d like.

~ adapted from Baking Chez Moi by Dorie Greenspan (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2014).

BON APPETIT!

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Copyright © 2014 Jama Rattigan of Jama’s Alphabet Soup. All rights reserved.

friday feast: ♥ my darling, my dumpling ♥

~ jama ~ 69 Comments

Not too long ago, I asked you to call me “Melon Head.” Would you mind changing that to “Apple Dumpling”?

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Of all the foodie terms of endearment — Pumpkin, Sweetie Pie, Babycakes, Cookie, Honeybun — I think “Apple Dumpling” suits me best right about now.

Fall (my favorite season) doesn’t officially begin until Sunday, but that familiar chill is already in the air. Hooray for apple season, deep blue skies, warm cider with cinnamon sticks, stunning rustic foliage, and friendly pumpkins on porches! I am basically *ahem* a little apple-shaped, can be sweet or tart, and would like nothing better than to wrap myself in a buttery, flaky blanket of dough. Did you know this past Tuesday the 17th was National Apple Dumpling Day? 🙂

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