Apples are pretty perfect. My life is not. I like that when I buy a bag of apples they are more than one more thing to throw in the kids' lunch bags and hope it passes muster as a "healthy". 5 pounds of this season's apples, picked just a wee bit west of where I am now, is 5 pounds of potential. Perfectly imperfect spheres of potential comfort.
I am not a great baker, or rather, I am not a baker. I like to cook. I like to use handfuls and pinches and shit-tons of ingredients. The chemistry of baking is too finicky for me. I like using recipes as more of a guide than anything. Apples make me bake.
I find a lot of recipes that use apples are more forgiving. After rigid attention to measurements and the look and feel of the dough for a flaky yet chewy melt in your mouth crust I can let loose on the filling for a pie. I like pies and tarts better when the slices of apple are imperfect. Biting into on warm spicy sweet filling coated chunk of apple that is a bit thicker than its peers is bliss. That one al dente bite of apple still a bit firm in the center with its pure apple taste still intact. Drool.
It has been a crazy few months. Hence the lack of blogging and my intense, desperate joy at seeing the new apples in the store. I had to move, I quit my job I found another two jobs, quit one, it goes on. Macs the size of soft balls were exactly what I needed to keep the Doctor(s) away.
Sadly, for reasons I care not to speak of right now, my oven has no door. So no pies for me. Still, there was no way I was leaving this bag of apples in their natural state. Oh Hells no! These mother fuckers were getting candied, Martha Stewart style. Seriously, I picked twigs and whittled the ends to points and it was worth it. So much cuter and therefore more delicious than Popsicle sticks. Also ever since she had Snoop on her show I feel like less of a weirdo listening to gangster rap in an apron.
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