jama rattigan's alphabet soup

mood: chipper

   HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Yeah, I know. Today is supposed to be about pumpkins. But this is the last day of Apple Month, and some haven't been eaten. So how about a mixed basket of apple-y treats: a little folklore, a few facts, a poem, a couple of myths? Nibble as you please. And what are those bite marks on your neck?

   Irish folklore claims that if an apple is peeled into one continuous ribbon and thrown behind a woman's shoulder, it will land in the shape of her future husband's initials.

The world's largest apple peel was created by Kathy Wafler Madison on October 16, 1976, in Rochester, NY. It was 172 feet, 4 inches long. (She was 16 years old at the time and grew up to be a sales manager for an apple tree nursery.)


 Here's a lovely poem, "Words as Wild Apples," by Timothy Walsh. Be sure to read both pages (18-19).

 Aah, What's up Doc? Apples contain Vitamin C to boost the immune system, phenols to lower cholesterol, phytonutrients to prevent brain disease, flavinoids to prevent heart disease, is low in calories, and its juice can kill up to 80% of bacteria in the mouth! Apples also target multiple cancers and promote healthier lung function. So munch munch munch, to keep both the doctor and the dentist away!

The crabapple is the only apple native to North America. Apples are grown in all 50 states, but only grown commercially in 36 states. Washington is the no.1 apple producer in the U.S. China is the world's largest producer.

Danish folklore says that apples wither around adulterers (come here, my pretty)!

The term "Big Apple" was coined by touring jazz musicians of the 1930s who used the slang expression "apple" for any town or city. To play NYC is to play the big time.


  In the U.S., Denmark, and Sweden, a polished apple is a traditional gift for a teacher. This stemmed from the fact that teachers during the 16th to 18th centuries were poorly paid, so parents would compensate the teacher by providing food. Teachers would often be given baskets of apples from students, since apples were a very common crop.


( Read more... )

Tags: apple month, apple treats, halloween

Posted at 05:55 am | Link | Leave a comment | 5 comments | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend

mood: chipper

  So, let's say you're at a social gathering and you want to impress someone.

Or, maybe you're in final Jeopardy, and if you can say "apple" in Turkish, you win $1.5 million.

Or better still, your agent sells the foreign rights to your novel, and fans all over the world are clamoring to meet you on your book tour.

You just never know. 

A good writer is always prepared.

A good writer knows how to speak apple. 

( Read more... )

Tags: apple month, multlicultural apples

Posted at 09:50 am | Link | Leave a comment | 8 comments | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend

mood: chipper

 

Where were you this past Sunday, October 21st? 

Were you, by any chance, in England?

If so, then you were there to celebrate APPLE DAY! 

Yes, that's right!  For the past 17 years, the entire country goes apple mad on this day in October. And we're not talking about a few apple festivals, orchard tours, or farm stands selling fruit.  We're talking about apple doctors who offer horticultural advice, or help you identify a mystery apple growing on your property. There's apple bobbing, pruning and grafting classes, apple and spoon races, roadshows, storytelling, archery, and on and on.  Apple cakes, puddings, pies, chutney, and cider are everywhere. They even serve apple food and drink in the Houses of Parliament! 

And it's not just a couple of food aficionados or nature lovers or fanatic apple heads. Everyone is involved:  "schools, Women's Institutes, historic properties, museums, juice producers, apple growers, cider makers, farmers, nurserymen, restaurants, wild life trust, supermarkets, arts centres, agricultural and art colleges, garden societies, and parish councils."

Yes, the British really know how to do it up BIG.

AND, (wait for it)  . . . they even have an APPLE POET LAUREATE!!

In 1999, this particular honor was bestowed upon James Crowden, a resident of Somerset, who writes both poetry and prose. Lest you think he was chosen because he munched on a few apples and could pen a pretty phrase, think again. This is a man who deeply cares about the environment, who is fascinated by "the interface between literature and anthropology, looking at specific geographical areas and groups of people through their work." 

He's done sheep farming, sheep shearing, fish farming, and peat cutting in the Outer Hebrides, as well as boating on the Bristol Docks. When he moved to North Dorset he became a forester and kept his first flock of sheep, witnessing firsthand farming methods that hadn't changed since before the war. So he turned to poetry to document this vanishing way of life. When he moved to Somerset, he started making cider, and eventually wrote a comprehensive history of "the most fascinating of drinks," called CIDER: THE FORGOTTEN MIRACLE.

These days, he takes children and adults on outdoor Walks, where they are encouraged to write down their sensory impressions, convert their notes into poems, and then perform them for the group. He calls his workshops "Walking with Words: Exploring Language and Landscape." His philosophy is to make people more aware of their surroundings and to "get them to look at their environment through fresh eyes."

So, as Apple Month draws to a close, please peruse this pomological poem by England's Apple Poet Laureate:

THE APPLE
by James Crowden (1999)



The apple is a saucey little item,
Daughter of blossom, sits neatly in the palm,
Exquisite in its pert roundness
And asking to be admired and handled.

Look for instance at the much forgotten stalk
The secret timing of its fall from grace
The gravity of the situation, the earthly grasp
Or else the apple of your eye cradled in the sun.

Plucked in perfection from the tree of life,
The rosie skin that takes a shine,
Protects the inner flesh, firm and crisp and even,
till young mouths are brought into play.

Read the rest of the poem here.

Full Poetry Friday Roundup at Literary Safari.

***And don't forget, today is the last day to enter my APPLE FOR THE TEACHER CONTEST! Mention your favorite teacher in a comment for a chance to win MISS SPITFIRE by Sarah Miller and the APPLE COOKBOOK by Olwen Woodier. 

Tags: apple day, apple month, james crowden

Posted at 06:45 am | Link | Leave a comment | 13 comments | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend

mood: cheerful

 
Here's how they stack up. What kind of apple are you?




Their stats:

1. Braeburn:  All purpose. Good choice for baking. Doesn't brown quickly when cut, making it an excellent choice for salads.

2. Cortland:  Excellent for eating, salads, sauces, pies, baking. Freezes well.

3. Fuji:  Excellent for fresh eating and salads, good for sauce and cooking. Stores well.

4. Gala:  Excellent for fresh eating and salads. Just the right size to pack in a pocket or handbag. Cooking destroys both its aroma and texture.

5. Ginger Gold:  Fabulous for fresh eating. Makes a wonderful pie, and is excellent for snacking and salads. Retains its crisp, white flesh when sliced.

6.Golden Delicious:  All purpose. Good to use in pies and baking. Freezes well.

7. Red Delicious:  Best for snacking and salads. Poor for baking.

8. Granny Smith:   All purpose. Excellent for salads, fresh eating, baking.

9. Honeycrisp:  All purpose. Known for its "explosively" crisp texture. A fresh eating sensation blending a pleasing, sweet and slightly tart flavor with incredible juiciness.

10. Jonathan:  Good either raw or cooked. Makes a terrific pie and can be blended with other apples for a robust sauce.

11. Jonagold:  Excellent for fresh eating, salads, sauces, baking. Good for use in pies and freezing.

12. McIntosh:  All purpose. Excellent for eating fresh, sauces, salads, and pies.

13. Pacific Rose:  Excellent for eating out of hand or in salads. Good for storing.

14. Paula Red:  All purpose. Good for fresh eating, pies, and sauce.

15. Wealthy:  Good for pies, cakes, sauces, juice and cider.


I'm a Red Delicious and my husband, Len, is a McIntosh. It describes us to a "T." He's all purpose, flexible. You can take him anywhere. Best take me as I am, because I can't take the heat! 

Tags: apple month, apple varieties

Posted at 10:07 am | Link | Leave a comment | 9 comments | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend

mood: contemplative

Just for you, I picked this apple poem out of the barrel. The poet, Laurie Lee, grew up in the village of Slad, in Gloucestershire, England. That's Cotswold country. (Sigh.) Yes, there is always a lot of sighing whenever I talk about England. 

I lived there for three years, and it wasn't enough. I'd go back any day. The Cotswolds, with its honey colored stone cottages, thatched roofs, and gently rolling green hills, is as idyllic and "typically English" as any place could be. Shakespeare was born in Stratford-upon-Avon, and Jane Austen lived in Bath, the setting of several of her novels.

Laurie Lee's first love was poetry, but he is better known for the first volume of his autobiographical trilogy, CIDER WITH ROSIE (1959), where he recounts his childhood in an innocent and much simpler time:

"'It's cider,' she said. 'You ain't to drink it though. Not much of it, any rate.' Huge and squat, the jar lay on the grass like an unexploded bomb. We lifted it up, unscrewed the stopper, and smelt the whiff of fermented apples. I held the jar to my mouth and rolled my eyes sideways, like a beast at a water-hole. 'Go on,' said Rosie. I took a deep breath . . .Never to be forgotten, that first long secret drink of golden fire, juice of those valleys and of that time, wine of wild orchards, of russet summer, of plump red apples, and Rosie's burning cheeks. Never to be forgotten, or ever tasted again . . ."

Rosie the temptress, like Eve with the forbidden fruit?

In "Apples," Lee, supposedly a very gentle and kind man, examines the cycles of nature and its beautiful efficiency, with the apple as a world within a world. A thing of wonder and beauty; hold it in your hand, turn it over, taste the sumptuous images in the poem.

 APPLES
by Laurie Lee


photo of my great-nephew, Harri, taken by his dad, Ian Dodge

APPLES
by Laurie Lee

Behold the apples' rounded worlds:
juice-green of July rain,
the black polestar of flowers, the rind
mapped with its crimson stain.

The russet, crab and cottage red
burn to the sun's hot brass,
then drop like sweat from every branch
and bubble in the grass.

Read the rest of the poem here.

Today's Poetry Friday Roundup is at Kelly Fineman's blog.

 

Tags: apple month, laurie lee

Posted at 07:44 am | Link | Leave a comment | 16 comments | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend

mood: cheerful

 


Okay, folks, I know I teased you with the world's largest apple pie the other day, and left you salivating.

Though the recipe sounded interesting, it wasn't something you could actually make.

So, here's my favorite apple pie recipe. It has a streusel topping; I guess some people would call it a dutch apple pie. I like it because you don't have to roll out 2 crusts, and sometimes having a top crust is just too much crust (and trans fats). For those of you who suffer from FOPC (fear of pie crusts), you can cheat and buy a ready-made one. I recommend the whole wheat crust that comes frozen from Whole Foods Market. It has zero trans fats, and most people can't tell it wasn't homemade.

APPLE CRUMB PIE
(makes one 9" pie)



Crust:

1 1/2 c sifted flour
1/2 c Crisco
1/2 tsp salt
about 3 T iced water

1. Combine flour and salt. Cut in the Crisco with a pastry blender until the mixture is crumbly.
2. Gradually add the iced water, tablespoon by tablespoon, mixing in lightly with a fork. (If it's a humid day, you may need less water.) 
3. Form the dough into a ball. 
4. Let the dough rest for about 10 minutes.
5. Then roll out the dough between two sheets of waxed paper. (Much easier than flouring a board or counter.)
6. Lay the dough into an 8 or 9" glass pie dish; crimp the edges.

Filling:

2 lb green apples (6 cups)
3 T lemon juice
1/2 c sugar (use more or less depending on sweetness of apples)
2 T flour
1 tsp grated lemon peel

Topping:

1/2 c sugar
1/2 c flour
1/2 tsp cinnamon (i always use more)
1/4 tsp ginger
1/8 tsp mace
1/4 c butter

1. Combine sugar, flour, cinnamon, ginger, and mace. Mix well.
2. Cut in butter with fork until mixture is crumbly.
3. Distribute over apple filling and bake in 375 degree oven for 55-60 minutes.


The Ala Mode:


To top everything off, two tasty picture books to read with your pie:

(
Apple Pie that Papa Baked by Lauren Thompson
(Simon and Schuster, 2007)


(Good review of Apple Pie that Papa Baked at 7-Imp recently!)




How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World by Marjorie Priceman
(Dragonfly Books, 1996)

Tags: apple crumb pie, apple month

Posted at 10:49 am | Link | Leave a comment | 4 comments | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend

mood: curious

 



Need some inspiration? Wondering how to court the muse? Consider this:

"The poet Schiller used to keep rotten apples under the lid of his desk and inhale their pungent bouquet when he needed to find the right word. Then he would close the drawer, although the fragrance remained in his head. Researchers at Yale University discovered that the smell of spiced apples has a powerful elevating effect on people and can even stave off panic attacks. Schiller may have sensed this all along. Something in the sweet, rancid mustiness of those apples jolted his brain into activity while steadying his nerves."

                from A NATURAL HISTORY OF THE SENSES by Diane Ackerman 

Tags: apple month, courting the muse, rotten apples, schiller

Posted at 05:06 pm | Link | Leave a comment | 6 comments | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend

mood: contemplative

It would be sacrilege to celebrate Apple Month without including Robert Frost. He loved his apple orchards and his ruminations upon the fruit resulted in many poems. Besides, he was a New Englander, like my husband, and once, years ago, I got to visit the farmhouse in Franconia, New Hampshire, where Frost lived full-time from 1915-1920, and where he spent 19 summers. I remember pausing in the narrow country lane, trying hard to hear his voice in the wind. I gently touched the battered mailbox, wondering what good and bad news he had found there regarding his poems.

Today The Frost Place is a museum open to visitors mostly on weekends and afternoons from Memorial Day to the first week of October. There are educational programs and an annual conference with writing workshops. Each year, an emerging young poet is given a cash stipend and the opportunity to live and work in the house during July and August. How cool is that?

But back to the apples. In 1920 Frost moved from Franconia to Shaftsbury, Vermont, seeking "a better place to farm and especially to grow apples."  There he planted McIntosh, Northern Spy, Golden Delicious, Red Delicious and Red Astrachan, hoping to fulfill his dream of a "thousand apple trees of some unforbidden variety."  Today there is only one tree still living from this orchard, but The Frost Museum is currently trying to restart the orchard via grafting. The Robert Frost Apple Project seeks to "create a display orchard of 20 trees composed of the historic varieties of apples as mentioned in Frost's letter." People from all over the country will be able to purchase a cutting to plant a Frost tree of their own. What a beautiful idea! Read more about it here.

So, sip your coffee or tea, and enjoy once again, probably the most famous apple poem ever written by an American poet.

AFTER APPLE-PICKING
by Robert Frost (1915)



My long two-pointed ladder's sticking through a tree
Toward heaven still,
And there's a barrel that I didn't fill
Beside it, and there may be two or three
Apples I didn't pick upon some bough.
But I am done with apple-picking now.
Essence of winter sleep is on the night,
The scent of apples: I am drowsing off.
I cannot rub the strangeness from my sight
I got from looking through a pane of glass
I skimmed this morning from the drinking trough
And held against the world of hoary grass.
It melted, and I let it fall and break.
But I was well
Upon my way to sleep before it fell,
And I could tell
What form my dreaming was about to take.

( Read more... )
 

Tags: after apple-picking, apple month, robert frost

Posted at 03:01 pm | Link | Leave a comment | 18 comments | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend

mood: giddy

 
photo courtesy of Luisa Weiss, The Wednesday Chef

Here is the perfect Sunday morning breakfast treat.
Indulge yourself with a medley of light, puffy batter, 
partly caramelized apples, crisp feathery edges and a custardy center. 
It's all there.

SOW'S EAR BAKED APPLE PANCAKE
(serves 6)

What you will need:

a fainting couch to catch yourself after the first bite
lots of synonyms for the word "delicious"

5 T butter, melted, divided
3 eggs, lightly beaten
3/4 c milk
1 T granulated sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 c plus 1 T flour
2 small apples, peeled, cored, and thinly sliced
3 T brown sugar, lightly packed
3 T powdered sugar

1. Heat oven to 450 degrees F. Combine 2 T of melted butter with the eggs, milk, granulated sugar, vanilla, cinnamon, salt and flour. Mix the batter by hand or in a food processor. Set aside.

2. Heat the remaining 3 T of butter with the apple slices in a 10-inch oven-proof skillet until the apples are sizzling and slightly cooked. Pour in the batter. Sprinkle the top with brown sugar and bake until well browned and puffed, 20-25 minutes.

3. Dust with powdered sugar. Cut into wedges and serve immediately.
 

Tags: apple month, baked apple pancake

Posted at 05:37 pm | Link | Leave a comment | 6 comments | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend

mood: pleased

 
GENTLE'S HOLLER by Kerry Madden
Ages 9-12, (Viking, 2005)

From one of the most heartwarming, lyrical books I've read recently, here's a passage where the main character, Livy Two (12), a talkative aspiring songwriter who loves e.e. cummings (as I do), visits the bookmobile:

"I put my books on the return shelf, and Miss Attickson smiles at us from behind her desk, her short black hair tucked behind her ears. 'Well, I was hoping I'd see y'all today, the venerable Weems tribe. I was lucky to get to make two trips to Maggie Valley in a week. That doesn't happen near enough as far as I'm concerned. Now listen, who needs apples? I have a fine sack of apples under this desk . . . Miss Attickson continues, 'Well, y'all children know what I say, don't you? Books and apples go together. One of my very favorite things in this world is to curl up with a good book and a crisp juicy apple on a lazy summer afternoon. You children make that a lifelong habit, and you will fill many a lonely hour. Books and apples. Small miracles, but miracles just the same.'"

Make GENTLE'S HOLLER your next apple adventure. It will fill you up with the tender, happy, poignant music of a large North Carolina family.

And when you're ready for more, reach for a big second helping of Kerry Madden's next book in the Weems family trilogy, LOUISIANA'S SONG, published just this past spring:


LOUISIANA'S SONG by Kerry Madden
Ages 12 and up (Viking, 2007)

I am reading this book right now and loving it! Uncle Hazzard, the family dog, likes apples at his favorite treat! 
 

Tags: apple month, gentle's holler, kerry madden, louisiana's song

Posted at 12:36 pm | Link | Leave a comment | 2 comments | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend

mood: hungry

FARMER BOY by Laura Ingalls Wilder
Ages 8-12, (HarperCollins, 1953)


Guess who came to dinner last night?  Almanzo Wilder! Well, sort of.

Since this is autumn and harvest season and all, I was in the mood to reread FARMER BOY.  Of course I was shamelessly salivating all the way through, as Laura described meal after meal full of farm-fresh produce. I marveled at Almanzo's ability to polish off huge quantities of food, and still have room for pie (usually more than one piece)!  It was all I could do to keep myself from running to the farmer's market, loading up on everything, then gorging myself.

I resisted this compulsion until I came to this passage:

     "He knelt on the ice, pushing sawdust into the cracks with his mittened hands, and pounding it down with a stick as fast as he could, and he asked Royal,

     'What would you like best to eat?'

     They talked about spareribs, and turkey with dressing, and baked beans, and crackling cornbread, and other good things. But Almanzo said that what he liked most in the world was fried apples 'n' onions.

     When, at last, they went in to dinner, there on the table was a big dish of them! Mother knew what he liked best, and she had cooked it for him."


Apples and onions? How wholesome! How healthy!! I could do that! This one simple dish really spoke to me. Onions from the dark earth mingling with apples that grew high in the sky. I loved that beautiful completeness, one which I discovered over and over again in the book. 

The story takes place in 1866, when Almanzo was nine, one year before Laura was born.  The Wilders had a dairy farm up in Malone, New York, which in its prosperous years provided a sharp contrast to Laura's pioneering childhood. Food was plentiful on the Wilder farm; lots to go around for Almanzo and his older brother, Royal, and sisters, Eliza Jane and Alice. But Almanzo was always hungry,and his insides gnawed and twisted as he waited for his turn to be served. Being the youngest, he always had to wait the longest for his food. Laura masterfully builds up this anticipation (the most effective of literary appetizers), so that when we finally read about the meal, it fills us up to the brim. 

( Read more... )

 

Tags: apple month, apples 'n' onions, farmer boy, laura ingalls wilder

Posted at 04:22 pm | Link | Leave a comment | 4 comments | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend

mood: curious

October is Apple Month here at alphabet soup, so I've been reading a lot of apple poems. Just as the apple is the most versatile food in the world, it's also one of the most versatile literary tools. 

From the time we are fed that first baby spoon of applesauce, through those happy childhood days of finding an apple in our lunchboxes, until we are all grown up, still anticipating that first bite of warm apple pie, or finding deep satisfaction in preparing an apple dish for the family -- apples nourish our bodies, while providing sensory stimulation with serious staying power.

It is no wonder, then, that many writers have ruminated upon the apple, since it carries a universal message. Apple as image, touchstone, symbol, metaphor, lyric -- its tangible quality makes a strong impression on our imaginations, as we grasp for meaning. 

Today I offer "The Crossed Apple," by Louise Brogan. The apple the narrator offers to the maid is suitably weighted. Brogan exploits this symbol by referring to the apple's skin, flesh, and seeds. As in many of her other poems, she uses the element of contrast brilliantly here. I am left pondering the apple as a microcosm of life.

If you could choose, which side would you take -- the white or the red?


THE CROSSED APPLE
by Louise Brogan


I've come to give you fruit from out my orchard,
Of wide report.
I have trees there that bear me many apples,
Of every sort.

Clear, streaked; red and russet; green and golden;
Sour and sweet.
This apple's from a tree yet unbeholden
Where two kinds meet,

So that this side is red without a dapple,
And this side's hue
Is clear and snowy. It's a lovely apple.
It is for you.


Louise finishes here.

This week's Poetry Friday Roundup is at Whimsy Books.

Tags: apple month, crossed apple, louise brogan

Posted at 12:08 pm | Link | Leave a comment | 6 comments | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend

mood: busy

Welcome to our home. Please come in . . .

Happy October! 

It sure was nice seeing our front door again after the long flight back from Hawaii.

But everything felt different. Fall had crept in. Our driveway was full of leaves, and a bracing chill filled the air. I didn't mind one bit. I love autumn. The days ahead promise deep blue skies, rollicking pumpkins, and nature's finest spectacle, as trees take their last bows in rustic costume. I'll fill my eyes with the sight of autumn leaves -- red, amber, gold and orange, because it will have to last me all winter.

Autumn's cooler weather inspires me to cook! How about a hearty vegetable soup, simmering all afternoon, its savory aroma drifting over to where I'm typing a story?  Or even better, I might bake some ginger snaps or an apple pie, just so I can breathe in the heavenly smell of something baking in the oven. 

But do you know what the best part of autumn is?


                      APPLES!!

What a wonder an apple is, how versatile for cooking or eating out of hand. And what a striking metaphor for writers:  the forbidden fruit, the apple of my eye, as American as apple pie, the Big Apple, an apple a day keeps the doctor away, one bad apple spoils the bunch, an apple for the teacher, apple polisher, and Adam's apple.

Apples are supposedly the most varied food on the planet, with over 7500 varieties on record, and 2500 varieties cultivated in the U.S. alone. Growing up in Hawaii, I thought there were just two kinds of apples:  red and green. It wasn't until I moved to Virginia that I learned about the dazzling array of color, texture, and unique uses for each variety. My husband loves the tartness of a crispy McIntosh, while I prefer the sweetness of Red Delicious for my daily midmorning snack. And what about those Rome Beauties, Golden Delicious, Staymans and Granny Smiths? Apples can have personalities, too!

Chances are good that your local farm market is brimming with bushels and bushels. So, it's the perfect time of year to celebrate apples. All month long, stop in for apple poems, apple recipes, apple stories and lore, maybe even an apple contest!

It just might be the tastiest bite of your day!

( Take your first bite here! )

Tags: apple month, apples, october

Posted at 04:14 pm | Link | Leave a comment | 15 comments | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend