Picking Apples with Grandmama… or Sautéed Apples in the French Style.

Sautéed Apples with Honey: Paleo &  Gluten Free

Flour. Butter. Salt. Water.
Her hands moved quickly, but without a hint of hurry.
Scoop. Slice. Sprinkle. Roll.
I stood at her side watching her work the dough. As her rolling pin moved across the counter, I noticed a small break in the pastry.

“Oh no!” I cried.
Dipping her fingers into a cut glass bowl filled with water, she smoothed the surface until the fracture was healed.

“It’s alright,” she said, “we just use a bit of pastry glue to fix it”

Outside, I climbed the ladder to reach branches heavy with ripe fruit. She cautioned me not to eat the sour green ones, warning of tummy aches.  I sloughed off the warnings and took a bite. The strange woody texture, so different than the juiciness of the apples she would use for cooking. The astringent quality- fascinating and unfamiliar, but not unpleasant to my 5-year-old palate.

I watched as she sliced apples, gossamer thin. Her only tool, a paring knife– the skin of the fruit falling away in one long spiral. Warm autumn light streamed though the window over her sink, tinting the kitchen gold. Indian summer heat, and depression-era values meant that no lights would burn overhead until the setting sun sunk below the stand of Eucalyptus trees behind the garden.

Knowing I’d have to wait hours for the tart, I pleaded for some of the apples cooking atop the stove. She pulled two small bowls from the cabinet overhead, and filled them. On afternoons like this, I always sat in my grandfather’s seat at the head of the table- she in the seat to my right- the one closest to the kitchen.

Steam filled the air. It rose from our bowls and from her cup of afternoon tea. Dipping my silver spoon into the gold-rimmed bowl, I was greeted with the scents of apple, cinnamon, and lemon peel. Even now, my mouth waters at the mention of that perfect combination. Even now, I make my apples the exact same way. Even now, I eat unripe fruit from trees- marveling at the cycle of blossoming and growth and ripening and death.

Though I first put butter to pan years after she was gone, she was my first teacher. The recipes she passed to my mother, my mother to me, are the possessions I would rescue in a fire. Those dishes, my link to laughter, fights, joy, tears, and love around the table- where I now occupy the seat closest to the kitchen.