Thursday, October 15, 2009

picked a peck


it is a fact that autumn is pretty much my favorite season, and, as far as i know, always has been. (and i don't know how anyone would know any differently, but i thought i would build in a loophole just in case.)

i think my attachment to fall has mostly to do with my attachment to nostalgia, which fall seems to be filled with. i was born in the fall, started college in the fall, left on my mission in the fall. fall is full of remembrance for me. plus i always happily salute the return of scarves and gloves and hats and other adorable outerwear.

unfortunately, fall has been a little slow to make its way here (though it is cooling off quickly and pouring down rain, so it might have finally arrived) and it occured to me a little while ago that i hadn't yet celebrated my favorite season adequately. so emily and i set about to rectify the situation on monday (thanks, columbus!) with a trip to maryland to pick apples.

the air was crisp, the leaves were richly and brightly colored, the picking was good (despite the sign that said, "apple season is over. no more apples until 2010," which turned out to be an inexplicable lie) and before you know it, we had amassed 20 pounds of apples.









that's a lot of apples, folks.

i had, in fact, seen on the orchard's web site that the price of apples per pound dropped if you picked 20 pounds or more, and i distinctly remember thinking to myself, "who on earth would pick 20 pounds of apples? or more?"

me. that's who.

not that having 20 pounds of apples stopped us from buying one more, of the caramel variety. because it didn't.





swarms of bees did force us to enjoy said caramel apples in the car, though.

we spent the rest of the afternoon baking our many pounds of apples into many delicious things. namely apple ginger cupcakes and butterscotch apple cake and german pancakes with apple (which we enjoyed for lunch) and apple crisp.

by the time everything was out of the oven we couldn't stand to look at another apple let alone eat anything with an apple in it, so we called in reinforcements. it is amazing how many people will respond to a plea to consume fresh apple baked goods.

we still had about half the original haul left over at the end of the night, but split between the two of us it didn't seem so impossible, and uncle bob and aunt joyce have been making short work of the apples i brought home. (i still haven't been able to eat another one, though my saturation level is starting to come down.)

welcome, autumn. i think we did you right.

2 comments:

Evan and Holly said...

For your dad's sake, I'll point out the obvious. You are still spending all your time in Washington, eating. And in this case, mostly bad for you things like cake. However, I firmly stand behind you in stating that if you have a metabolism that lets you look as wonderful as you do--eat up sister, and do it frequently. Plus, what good is making a salary larger than your age if you can't spend it on the finer things in life like eating out.

Kate said...

I second Holly: Live it up while you can. And should you ever feel the need to bake anything in a 60-mile radius of my house, rest assured I will help you devour it.