As soon as October rolled around I had an intense craving for apple pie. I could almost taste it in my mouth if I thought about it hard enough, eyes closed and tummy growling. Sweet tart apples, laced with spices and enveloped by a hearty crust. Simple yet complex at the same time. Apple pie conjures childhood memories of time spent with my grandmother, or Maw Maw as we liked to call her. We would sit around her lace-lined table in the dining room, eagerly awaiting a slice of her Dutch apple pie. Once in front of me I tried to eat as slowly as humanly possible, savoring every last morsel until my plate was licked clean.
While in New York last month, we ventured upstate to spend the day in New Paltz hiking around Lake Minnewaska and taking in as much fall as we could. We passed many pumpkin patches and apple orchards along the way, those bright little orbs beacons for the season’s beautiful harvest. Before we headed back to the city, we stopped into Jenkins Leuken Orchards so I could buy a pumpkin and some apples. The northern spy apples caught my eye with their pale green and rosy hues and rather interesting name. After eating one that evening, the sweet-tart juices running down my chin, I made a plan to ferret these beauties back to Texas with me, no matter how much I had to shift around my luggage.
Once home I decided to finally satisfy my pie craving with a crostata, which is basically a fancy name for a free-form pie or tart. I started envisioning what it would look and taste like, perhaps with rosemary from our container garden and bits of bittersweet dark chocolate laced within the slices of apple. Upon taking the first bite I was right back at Maw Maw’s dining table, the grandfather clock chiming and her cackling echoing from the kitchen. I savored every last bite…then immediately went in for seconds 😉
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I filled up about 4 notebooks with recipe tests and notes when I was developing products for Sweet Miscellany. On good days (i.e. the days when something turned out well) I felt like a chemist. On bad days it was hard to not feel like an absolute failure. But, I persevered because I wanted people with food allergies and sensitivities to be able to enjoy treats just like everyone else. Why shouldn’t someone with celiacs or lactose intolerance also be able to enjoy a doughnut? It just seemed really unfair. So I made it my mission to provide not just substitutes at the market, but damn good baked goods and treats period. And, I still continue with that tradition here on the blog.
