Love Passed Down on the Stove

I've always been a daddy's girl but my mom's companion. After I went away to college and subsequently moved to the City, my trips home were spent in a whirlwind of activity, primarily accompanying my mom hither and yon. When I'd go home to visit, I'd see relatively little of my dad, but he was always sure to make me one of two things, often both, over the course of a visit. The first selection was a meal of pan-fried venison steaks with onions, boiled potatoes and canned peas. (Generally made when my mom wasn't home since she couldn't stand the smell of cooking venison.) Extremely basic and dating from the camp fires of his childhood--I remember my lumberjack grandfather making the same meal.

More often (getting mom out of the house without me wasn't easy) I'd wake up on a frosty morning to the scent of cooking apples. He'd take the windfalls from his trees, cut out the bruises, throw them in a pot with a bit of water and cook them down into lumpy sauce loaded with cinnamon and sugar. He wasn't a demonstrative man, he rarely said "I love you," but he'd get up at 5 a.m. so I'd be sure to have hot applesauce with my breakfast before I ran off to visit friends or run errands with my mom. Now that he's gone I make the sauce on cold mornings and every time it's like standing at the stove with my father.

Applesauce
12 apples
water or cider
cinnamon and sugar to taste

Peel and core apples. Cut into quarters. Place in a deep pan with enough water to cover the bottom. Simmer until sauce is desired consistency and season with cinnamon and/or sugar.

I prefer to use a mix of varieties--different flavors, sugar and water content. Today's included granny smiths, macouns, ginger golds, a large gala, a mutsu, and a fortunata. The variety makes for more intense apple flavor, and the different water contents make some of the apples dissolve completely while others (granny smiths in particular) remain very solid and chunky. Today's blend yielded a rather tart sauce; it will hold up well for savory uses.

The sauce is basic and variations are simple. Adding a couple of pears can make the sauce seem even more apple-y. I sometimes use nutmeg or cardamon instead of cinnamon; I also remember my father's mother making pink sauce (I liked pink when I was little) by using red hots instead of cinnamon and sugar.