An apple... or two... or three... a day

Once upon a time I was at a friend's farm at the end of summer. We lived in Oregon then, in the Willamette Valley, and it was one of those rare days when the sun was shining and it was warm. There was an apple tree in the front yard. The apples were ripe.

Can I have an apple?

Sure, just be careful. The tree has not been sprayed. It might have worms

I reached up and picked one, and brushed the dust off on my shirt.

I took a bite. The juice was warm and sweet and it spurted into my mouth and I sort of slobbered it down my chin. And there was no worm.

It was.... it was....

it was... good... so very good...

I love apples.

We decided to drive out to Coleman's Hideaway Orchard to get some apples from Frank the Apple Man. He used to be Frank the UPS man, but then he retired to work in his orchard.

I called and got directions. Not too bad for Ozark directions:

You go down highway 60 to RA, but you don't turn left on RA, you turn right on the gravel road that's across from RA.

Go down that until you come to the crooked crossroad with the white sign pointing left.

But you don't turn left.

You immediately make a hard right and go down the hill. And it is about a mile down the road where the stone pillars are.

And she really did mean immediately and she really did mean hard right. At the crooked crossroad, he headed off to the right, but it wasn't downhill. Then he had put on the brakes and back up and make a hard right and go down the hill. The orchard really is hidden away. And so we bumped along on a very bad gravel road until we came to the orchard. And we got apples.



Golden Delicious....




And Fuji.....



And Arkansas Black


And they are beautiful. And very good. And you can actually eat the peelings because they are not covered in wax. And summer is captured in each sweet, juicy, crisp mouthful.

And later in the week, for the corporate Thanksgiving celebration, I will make Apple Custard Enchiladas. I started to type the recipe from the page I tore out of a 1999 issue of Women's Circle magazine, but after I made several mistakes in the amounts of ingredients, I thought I better see if it was available on-line. And, besides, unlike Sidewalk Shoes, I do not take beautiful pictures of food.