Apple Butter

There is apple butter cooking in my kitchen. It fills our home with the scents of Fall -- nutmeg and cloves and Cortland apples. It reminds me of peeling apples the day before, Jack seated across from me, handing me large, purple-skinned fruit and sampling each one's white flesh. Three-year-old jibber-jabber broken by the snapping of apple between his teeth and flashes of sweet, brown-eyed smiles.  

It reminds me of apple pie-making on Tuesday. Jack's feet pounding quickly through the house as he hears the scraping of my flour jar's lid. He pulls a chair across the floor and is quickly at my elbow, sneaking pieces of pie dough and asking to help. He is soon rolling out his own disk of scraps, smiling broadly as he tells me he is making "pie." 

It reminds me of a day spent at the arboretum. Sunshine kissing our heads as we trek through leaf-littered fields, eyes alert for brightly-colored specimens to place in our basket. Yellow birch and brilliant maples. Nut-brown oaks and mottled sassafras. We stand on the bridge, cut stone arcing across leaf-dappled water. Jack perches on the edge and throws a small, yellow leaf with all his little-boy might. It dances crazily in the air before settling casually on the surface, landing not nearly far enough from where he threw it. We come home and assemble our collection into a leaf man, who fiercely guards the entrance to our fridge. 

It reminds me of going to the orchard. The hot sun causing us to sweat as we walk down the twisting dirt road to the row labeled Macoun. Emma sits in the grass, contemplating a nearby rotting apple while Jack reaches low and over to grab the biggest one he can find, dangling from a laden branch. He gently sets it into the waiting bag which Emma promptly knocks down, climbs astride and straddles under her chubby legs. Hungry from the effort, we make our way back to sit on the porch, eating our sandwiches and sharing a jug of orchard-made cider. We chug straight from the container between mouthfuls of sugar-sprinkled cider doughnuts. 

It reminds me of Autumn. 

Dill Pickles

A pickle's life begins in the garden. The story is passed around our family of my cousin's friend who, upon tasting my Grammy's pickles, asked if they came from a pickle tree. We find it humorous because pickles, and the process of making them, are as familiar to us as an old friend. We all have memories of seeing my grandpa pick cucumbers in the garden for Grammy to pickle. And we all have memories of Grammy packing jars and boiling brine, with a sink full of the green veggie. And we all remember coming home to Maine to a dinner of corn chowder, homemade bread and dill pickles. And we never ate the stems because of Grandpa's solemn warning that cucumber vines would grow out of our ears.

Their garden is full of these cucumber vines. Two or three long rows of just cucumbers. The cucumbers are picked small, the best size being about the length of your pinky finger, and it takes many, many plants to get enough to fill Grammy's waiting jars. 

They pick cucumbers every few days, making a batch every time they have enough. Green jars line up on their cellar shelves, joining the dwindling supply of last year's crop. Some are boxed up and given to family, and many are popped open and placed on the table, awaiting dinner. These jars are visited by pickle-lovers, who throw furtive glances toward the cook and toss tell-tale pickle stems in the trash. Dinners are accompanied by the oft repeated "please, pass the pickles" and little stems line themselves in an arc upon every plate. 

Strawberries for Strawberry Shortcake

Strawberry season always takes me by surprise in Pennsylvania. In central New York, where I grew up, the growing season is quite a bit later due to the area's reluctance to let go of winter. Berry season always started right around my birthday, toward the end of June, meaning that I almost always got a strawberry pie on my birthday instead of cake. But here in Philly, the season is on its way out the door by the time my special day rolls around and I almost always am scrambling to get to the berry patch in time to get my ten quarts of scarlet red fruit.  This year was no exception and we planned a quick trip to Lancaster to get the last bits of this year's bounty.

How-To: Pumpkin Puree

I grew up on pie that started with an actual pumpkin. I remember, as a girl, watching my mom cut up a pumpkin, steam the skin off, cook it down and process it through a food mill. And only then came the actual pie making.

It instilled in me a love for pie made truly from scratch. I love the texture and flavor of pie made from a real pumpkin. Of course, it's a lot to do in one day. So now I make the puree on one day and then the pie on another. Or I freeze the pumpkin puree and store it up for a surprise pie in the winter. 

As with a lot of food processing, it may seem a little daunting. But the thing I like about it is that you do it in steps and the steps can be completed while you do other things during your day. The pumpkin steams while you are doing dishes, or eating lunch. And then it cools while your chasing your kids around or running to the store for a forgotten ingredient. Real food made while doing real life. 

How To: Freezer Corn

A few weeks ago, I drove out to Amish country and met my mother-in-law at the local farmer's market. It's an enormous sprawling thing with vendors selling anything and everything that can be homemade or grown on the farm. Here someone is selling candies, red fireballs and sugar-dusted gummies and proud looking chocolates, smartly decorated. A lady calls out to look at her fresh baked bread, oatmeal and wheat and cinnamon raisin. The smell of yeast is hard to resist as you pass her by. Another proudly shows her canned goods, peach preserves and raspberry jams standing at attention, tempting you to buy a jar and revisit the baked goods. And then there is the produce. Rows of green and red peppers, bins of green beans and snap peas, peaches and plums carefully placed in baskets, and buckets of unshucked corn. 

Raspberry Jam or Ode to My Sister

My family has always been staunchly in the strawberry jam camp. Thick slices of warm, homemade bread are accompanied by a frosty mason jar filled with that crimson goodness. 

However, a few years ago, my sister made a foray into the land of raspberry jam and came back with stained fingers and happy taste buds. My Christmas present that year was two pints of raspberry jam, a string of raffia tied jauntily underneath the rim. I ate them sparingly, saving them for especially delicious treats like fresh bread and oatmeal scones. It was a sad day when I finally spied the bottom of the second jar and tried scraping out the last, few globs. 

Strawberry Jam

My family has always made freezer jam. I can remember my mom leaving early on a bright, June morning for the strawberry patch, clad in plaid shorts and a white tank top, with a worn visor perched on her head to keep out the sun. She would leave with the car loaded up with cardboard green containers and her pockets filled with cash and would come back with quarts upon quarts of fresh, red berries. The trunk floor would be blanketed with boxes filled to the brim.

How-To: Applesauce or My Heritage

At the age of fourteen, I loudly declared that I hated to cook. My mom had been teaching me a few things about the art of cooking and I had made the family meatloaf recipe one too many times. Cooking meant work and that was something that my self-absorbed, teenage brain wasn't going to welcome with open arms.

Six years later, the summer Brad asked me to marry him, I realized that if I didn't learn to cook these family recipes, then I wasn't going to be eating them. My mom had spoiled me: pies with homemade crust, dill pickles in canning jars, strawberry jam, and yes, the family meatloaf. Mom goes all out for the family, even down to making salad and homemade crescent rolls to take on a family trip out west. If I didn't learn from her, then these family recipes would be gone forever.