Harvesting

Yesterday was devoted to cleaning up the almost-end of the apple harvest: making and freezing applesauce, making yet one more apple pie from our own apples. I’ve finally decided that an apple pie with only a top crust is just as good as (and maybe better than in some ways) an apple pie with two crusts. First, the bottom crust doesn’t get soggy if the apples are very moist; second, you don’t have to make two crusts; third, you cut the fat portion of the crust in half. Of course, I make up for that with having whipped cream with the apple one-crust pie, but whipped cream (like chocolates) is one of life’s small necessities. Or at least can be considered so if one is willing to use it in moderation.

I am still among the cooks that whip cream themselves because the stuff that comes in cans tastes funny to me. I used to think that people bought the canned stuff because they didn’t want to be committed to using an entire cup of whipping cream. But that can’t be the case because an entire can of pre-whipped cream (I know, it’s not really pre-whipped but is 'whipped' in the process of extruding it) also would have to be a commitment to the whole thing. I can only conclude that it is a trade-off: higher price and less good taste in exchange for not putting the 4 minutes into whipping it yourself. Seems like a bad bargain to me.

But, I was not meaning to talk about whipped cream. It was about the apples. There have been a lot of them, although not as abundant a year as most. My friends who press apple juice each fall usually have boxes of apples all over the cool parts of their house—brought in by friends and neighbors with excess—but the other day, I saw only a half dozen boxes at their house. So, less juice this year, maybe. Our Jonagold harvest has been the best of our 6 or 7 varieties this year: exquisite taste, juicy, crisp. I try to save them for eating, but we are now down to the last ten or so, so we will, sadly, soon have to shift to grocery store apples for eating. Within the next 6 weeks they start becoming noticeably stored apples. One of our trees has a few red delicious still considering ripening. The fall raspberry crop is also still thinking about ripening (no chance), but is settling for molding on the canes; the last red delicious will probably make it.) We’re all pretty conscientious about using up these apples. My neighbors, going away for a week or so, called us from the ferry to urge us to pick the end of the harvest from their tree while they are gone if we need apples. The apple harvest lasts for two months, at least, and it may be my favorite time of year just because it goes on and on and because apples are so shareable.

It is also time for the pecan harvest in New Mexico where my older daughter lives. She has a highly productive pecan tree and each year she ships us a couple of boxes, about twenty pounds each, of pecans in the shell. The first year she sent them, she also sent a pecan nutcracker of great ingenuity, called an ‘inertia nutcracker.’ It is sort of like a small log splitter, but only a picture will do, so you can see one here. (I am particularly fond of the fact that they advertise it as having been ‘invented by a medical doctor.’ Is that what they do in their spare time?) The inertia nutcracker, I believe, works only with pecans, but it really works. Even 80 pounds later, I still find the process entertaining. A truly fresh pecan is a wonder indeed; a fresh, toasted pecan even more splendid

When I get these boxes of pecans, I crack and use some and freeze the rest in the shell. Then, I take them out over the following year as I need them. Having twenty-thirty pounds of shelled pecans is one of life’s great riches, and when you combine it with those fresh apples? Why so much inclination to complain about life’s inadequacies? Today, I cracked the last of last year’s pecans because this year’s will soon be upon us. (At least I hope so.) I think of this as a day of thanksgiving: for the apples and the pecans. The Pilgrims landed in the wrong part of the country perhaps. Pecan pie: so much more everything than pumpkin could ever even dream of.