Apples

We are at the height of apple season, and Ohio grows tons of apples. You can get good local apples almost anywhere except the local food-store conglomerates. Earlier this summer, we picked peaches at Branstool Orchards in Utica, Ohio and made peach jam and canned peaches. I've already written about the peaches.

Branstool Orchards sells fruit at many of the local Farmers' Markets. It you get on their email list they will notify you each week where they will be and what they will be selling. We started the apple season with Gala, Honeycrisp, and Sweet Sixteen apples. The Gala apples went into applesauce and we ate the others. Some of the Honeycrisp were almost as big as a softball. They were all fabulously delicious. Later, we make more applesauce from Cortland,

This past weekend we bought Jonagold, Cortland, and the most beautiful deep red Jonathan apples. Following the recipe in The Locavore's Kitchen for "Mom's Apple Pie," which uses only apples, sugar, and flour for the filling, with no spices whatsoever. The Jonathan apples were crisp and sour, and the pie was the best I've ever baked. The quality of the apple pie had little to do with the cook and everything to do with the apples: they were picked late last week and we bought them on Saturday.

I should have taken a picture of the pie, but after pulling it out of the oven, that wasn't the first thing on my mind.