Two apples on the counter
I received Apples for Jam for my 29th birthday, and at 30 I am ashamed of how little I have cooked from it. It’s true that I have cooked relatively little from most of my cookbooks, but I really think this book is a masterpiece. Tessa Kiros has arranged a book of family recipes by colour, and yet when you get to the pink chapter, it’s not a case of everything being sickly sweet desserts with pink icing. After all, some vegetables are pink too.
I fell in love with this book in the store for its weight and the look of it all. It’s typeset in my favourite font…American Typewriter…and I had never considered it for lengthy text like a full book, but in this book it creates this playful, contemporary and feminine look that is balanced by gorgeous full page pictures. With all the family content, it could make you clucky to have little ones running about, but I am still happy to have this and just as likely to reach for it for dinner party ideas, so children aren’t a requirement.
Today we had just two apples left – one green, one red – and they wouldn’t last another day. The red one in particular didn’t feel like it would taste nice on its own, so I searched for an apple recipe from this book and found such a simple idea that I did want to smack my head for turning to a book. Cut the apples in half, cover with brown sugar, cinnamon and a few oats, then fill the bottom of the bowl with water and stick them in the oven. Check on them every now and then to pour the juice back over the top. The book suggests serving them with ice cream, but we had vanilla custard and it was just as nice. I can’t eat ice cream as much in the winter, as I never, ever warm up. Maybe in July. And then I get cold again by September.
As they bake, the good insides pull away from the skins, which I didn’t eat. The green apple was far nicer than the red. And I liked the coziness of these a bit more than the boy like them. But then again, he doesn’t spend the vast majority of the year trying anything to get warm.
xlovesx
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