A mid-January post

[shewhomust]

Half a month into the year, the daylight lasts until teatime and the students are returning: but I feel as if nothing has happened yet. Alternatively, as if so much has happened that I will never manage to fit them all into this post - but all the things that have happened are tiny things, or things that should have happened but didn't.

Two things that didn't happen:

• The weekend weather was so icy that S. decided not to come to Durham for the meeting (she said she couldn't face the hill down from the station, and I can't blame her); so she didn't drop in for tea / coffee afterwards. The previous weekend we had missed her party because of the snow: I hope this is not going to be the pattern of the year.


• Despite the thaw, I am not at the pub quiz tonight: durham_rambler has gone without me. On Monday evening I started sneezing explosively, and blamed the pepper I had been grinding into the cheese sauce (pepper has that effect on me these days; it never used to). But I haven't stopped sneezing since, so I think it must be a cold. I don't feel terrible, but I don't want to share it with a crowded pub, so I am spending the evening at home. I feel a bit flat, missing yet another social occasion, but I have Dreamwidth and the glass of whisky I would have drunk at the pub (only better whisky), so things could be worse.

Administrative things:

• The builders came, and measured the windows; they also examined the dormer window in my study, and pronounced it basically sound (phew!) but promised to look at it from the outside once the scaffolding was up, because once you are paying for scaffolding, it's silly not to make use of it. durham_rambler's study looks great after all the work he did to free up access to the window: so light and spacious! The sitting room looks less great, because the boxes of books which were stacked under the window (and therefore behind the sofa) are now ranged in full view. But they have been vacuumed, and much dust removed.


• One item of my prescription had fallen down the gap between the doctor and the pharmacy: it took durham_rambler two visits and a phone call to the pharmacy to work this out. The good news is that it's nothing life-threatening, just some analgesic gel; the bad news is that I may now have squeezed the last drop out of the tube.


• I need to submit my Income Tax return before the end of the month: it shouldn't be a big job, but it's always the next thing I need to do after... I think I have cleared away the dayjob tasks, and it now really is the next thing I need to do.

Good things (in the kitchen):

• It was not my plan to bake the first loaf of the year on that icy cold Saturday, and I worried that it wouldn't rise (or wouldn't have time to rise). But I had rescued my sourdough starter from the freezer, and restarted it, which is the procedure that works for me if I need to take a break; and now it was demanding attention, and there was no bread in the house, so needs must. I made a rye loaf, which rose only minimally in the tin, but made up for that in the oven. It's still quite dense, but that's how I like my bread, chewy and full of flavour.
.

• Back in the autumn, our neighbour A. gave us two big bags of cooking apples from her tree: I have been working my way through them ever since. We have had apple crumbles, an apple pie, stewed apples, pork and apples and red cabbage slaw with an apple in it. It wasn't until there were only three apples left that I thought of baked apples. My childhood memories of these aren't great, fighting to scrape the sour flesh from the tough skin - but A.'s apples were quite sweet, so maybe if I cooked them for a long time, and was generous with the mincemeat to stuff the core (I will not tell you the 'best before' date on the jar of mincemeat I found in the cupboard, but I don't believe it anyway: surely mincemeat improves with keeping?)... This stategy proved entirely successful: the skin was crisp and slightly charred, the flesh fluffy and sweet. I am a convert.

Trivia, but my mind feels tidier for having put it in writing.

Comments

[cellio]

Mmm, baked apples -- and it really does depend a lot on the type of apples. I'm glad yours worked out well!

[shewhomust]

Well enough that I'm open to further experiment - do you have any recommendations?

[cellio]

I sometimes make something that could be considered an apple crumble or cobbler, which it sounds like you have covered. I also like to bake them in fairly thick slices sprinkled with cinnamon and a little yellow fat (butter, or if the meal needs to be dairy-free, margarine). Another thing I like to do is to bake acorn or delicata squashes (halved, seeds scooped out) stuffed with diced apples and topped with butter/margarine or brown sugar or honey. I keep the skins on for all of this, though I know many people peel them first.

All of these are with non-tart apples. I don't know what to do with tart apples for the most part. I don't know what types are common versus local, but I tend to get Gala, Fuji, or (when available) Honeycrisp -- these are usually at my local store. I hope to do more farmers' markets this coming year where I hope there'll be more options.

[shewhomust]

Thank you! Some of this is familiar, but you can't have too many apple recipes.

Having looked up 'baked apples' on the web, I was particularly hoping for guidance about varieties of apple specified: so, it looks as if the UK distinction between cooking and eating apples is not a thing in the US? (Cookers are more likely to be tart, but also to collapse when cooked). I recognise Gala and Fuji, though not Honeycrisp...

Good hunting at the farmers' markets! Will you do the farm share scheme again?

[cellio]

I hope to do a farm share this year. After the one I really liked shut down at the beginning of the pandemic, I found another one that was ok, and then it shut down a couple years later. I just checked their site and they say they'll be back this year -- no pricing info or signups yet, but I was able to join the waiting list. Meanwhile, I'm looking around for other options.

I've seen "eating apple" and "cooking apple" in farm-share descriptions, ironically, but not anywhere else. (Maybe I'm not paying enough attention.) This conversation reminded me that apple cake is another thing I sometimes do; sometimes recipes call for applesauce and I'll grate apples instead, and that seems to work fine. If I had tart apples I'd probably use them and add a little more sugar or perhaps honey to offset. That seems like it would work.

[shewhomust]

There are so many points where British and US English diverge so subtly that we don't notice we are not talking the same language. I suspect that's what's going on with 'cooking' and 'eating' apples. Likewise 'applesauce' - I think when I talk about 'stewed apple(s)', I mean what you think of as applesauce. Whereas apple sauce (two words) is a fine puree of apple, tart rether than sweet, to serve with pork (or mackerel).

Good luck with the farm share - I hope you find something good!

[cellio]

Oh, more differences I see. I think of "stewed apples" as a warm dish with sizable chunks of apple, while "applesauce" is served cold and is more of a puree (and can be tart or sweet). While "chunky applesauce" is a thing, the chunks are a lot smaller than what I think of from stewed apples.

Ah, English! Or what passes for it over here. :-)

[anef]

I hope you continue to feel well and that your cold (if it is such) passes quickly. Must sign up for Classics Summer School!

[shewhomust]

Yes, thanks, it does seem to have been just a cold, and once it was gone, it was gone. durham_rambler was snuffly for a couple of days, but that too passed.

Must sign up for Classics Summer School!

Oh, summer plans ... When is it this year?