The First One

Sunday afternoon I found myself home alone with nothing but a basket of apples to keep me company. Everyone else was off either camping,at the beach or working. It was cool for a late August afternoon and I wanted to be nowhere else but home.

The apples were the ones I had gotten on Saturday afternoon when Buddy and I took a ride up See Canyon. I tied on my apron and got out my favorite pie cookbook "Country Pies - A Seasonal Sampler" by Lisa Yockelson.copyright 1988. I guess it is offically vintage now that it is over 20 years old. I turned to the Autumn Country Pies section. It starts out saying "Just about the time children go back to school, I am in the kitchen making batches of dried fruit and spice mincemeat to use in pie fillings with apples,pears,cranberries and quarts of apple cider syrup."

The recipe I use is actually for a cinnamon pear pie with a walnut streusel, but I just substitute the apples for the pears, and the walnuts were ones I had in the freezer from last fall that I had gotten at The Avila Barn.

So we made the pie and had it still warm after supper. And yes, it did taste like fall.