Every year I marvel at how the change of seasons seems to happen here in one day: on the ridgeline I see from our hilltop, trees that were a field of deep green are suddenly splashed yellow and orange. While I drive my kids to school, leaves eddy in midair past the car. It’s beautiful, and welcome -- but bittersweet for a gardener.
My tomatoes were already suffering from all the rain, split and suffering from disease likely brought on by too much moisture. A few stragglers remain: Marzanos, Peche Jaunes, and the super-productive cherries, but mostly, the "love apples" are winding down. Loss is inevitable in the garden, so I try to take it in stride. This year’s tomato harvest was good for us, if not outstanding, and I’ll still be able to supplement my crop with some from local farmers. I should be able to put up enough frozen tomatoes to see us happily through the winter.
The compensation for the loss of tomatoes, for me, is the arrival of truly great apples. Fresh, old variety apples bear no resemblance to those grown commercially, and even good apples stored too long lose flavor and crispness. This time of year, what I think of as “real” apples are beginning to peak, which means pie, apple sauce for the winter, and, of course, eating out of hand.
One of the first decisions my husband and I made when we bought our land nearly five years ago was that we wanted to install an orchard. A local landscape artist and plantsman helped us site it on a flat pad that runs right across the middle of our hillside. Once we planted the trees there -- a mix of hardy apple, pear, and plum varieties in a traditional quincunx pattern -- it seemed as though that plot of land had always meant to grow fruit, with its perfect sun exposure and some natural shielding from wind.
That said, because we planted those trees as tiny whips (much less expensive than full-grown trees), fruit is still a ways off. Though they’re finally starting to look, well, tree-like, we could have two or three more years to wait until they produce for us. Luckily, this year’s wild apples have made it easier to be patient.
All around our area, you can see the remains of old orchards: old trees gone feral, fruiting erratically if at all, left wild and unpruned. We have a few of these trees on our land, and this year, they’ve produced more and better fruit than we’ve ever seen from them. Mostly, we pick the raggedly looking apples and crab apples to feed as horse treats, waiting for the day when our own orchard will produce for us, and feeding ourselves from local orchards in the meantime.
But so abundant and hardy are the fruit this year that I’ve actually used some to flavor a favorite chicken liver paté, and, inspired by a friend who shared her favorite recipe with me, to make an utterly simple apple tart. Even with my ragged hillside apples, it was elegant.
SEEDING: There may still be time for your garden. In my northeastern climate, I can’t add much now beyond hardy greens like spinach and mache. But take a look at this fantastic “What to Plant Now” interactive guide from Mother Earth News. It will help you decide if your area can sustain a bit more new planting before you close the beds down for the year.
READING: I came to Michael Pollan’s work through his best-selling book, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, a must-read for anyone concerned with understanding the origins of the American diet. But before he became the locavore’s champion, Pollan was a gardener who wondered about the co-evolution of society and the crops we grow. His 2001 book, The Botany of Desire: A Plant's-Eye View of the World, explores the complex relationships between humans and four very different crops: apples, potatoes, marijuana, and tulips.
NEEDING: I peel my apples with a paring knife or a hand-held swivel peeler. But I gave a couple of old-fashioned countertop peelers as Christmas gifts last year, and I’m thinking I might want one myself, just in time for apple sauce season. The basic Apple Express is inexpensive and works well, but there’s also the alluring and retro Reading 78, a gorgeous (and pricey) example of kitchen engineering.
FEEDING: This recipe, another from David Tanis, is simple, elegant, and delicious, whether made from “wild” apples like mine or gorgeous farmstand specimens. In his cookbook, A Platter of Figs and Other Recipes, Tanis describes this recipe as “the plainest and best.” For me, that’s pretty much the culinary ideal.
Apple Tart (adapted from David Tanis’s A Platter of Figs)
2 cups all purpose flour, plus more for sprinkling
2 sticks (1/2 cup) cold butter, cut into thin slices
1/2 teaspoon fine grained sea salt
1 egg, beaten, plus enough ice cold water to make 1/2 cup
8 medium crisp apples, about 3 pounds
1 cup sugar, plus more for sprinkling on the tart
1 cup water
Put the flour, butter, and salt in a bowl and stir together. With your fingers, work the butter into the flour mixture until it looks mealy, with some large flecks of butter remaining. Pour the egg-water mixture into the bowl, stir, and quickly knead the dough for a minute or two until it comes together. It will be soft, a little sticky, and still rough looking.
Sprinkle the dough with a little flour and pat into a rectangle about 1-inch thick. Wrap in plastic wrap or waxed paper and refrigerate for at least an hour, or overnight.
Divide the pastry in half. (There is enough for two tarts; you can freeze half for later.) Roll out the pastry to a rectangle, approximately 11-by-16 inches, using a 15-1/2 by 10-1/2 inch baking sheet as a template.
Transfer the dough to the baking sheet and then trim the edges to fit, with a little going slightly up the sides. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate.
Peel the apples and cut into quarters.
Remove the cores and use to make a glaze: Combine the 1 cup sugar and 1 cup water with the cores in a small saucepan. Stir at first to dissolve sugar, and then simmer until thick and syrupy. Strain and reserve.
Slice the apples as thin as possible, and arrange them over the pastry in five rows, overlapping them like cards in solitaire. At this point, you can cover the tart with plastic wrap and refrigerate up to 8 hours. (It’s OK if the apples darken.)
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Sprinkle the sugar generously over the apples and bake until they are beautifully browned and the pastry is crisp, about 45 minutes. Cool on a rack. Just before serving, reheat the glaze. Slide the tart form the pan onto a cutting board. Paint the apples with the warmed glaze. Slice into small rectangles to serve, ideally with vanilla ice cream.
