Filed under: Condiments & Pickles | Tags: crabapple, foraging, jelly, preserving
I’ve been keeping my eye out lately for public fruit. I really like the idea that even in the middle of a city, nature can thrive and provide sustenance. So imagine my surprise when I realized that the trees in the parking lot of the grocery store a few blocks from my house are full of crabapples. I’ve lived here for more than 3 years and never gave them a second glance. Honestly, they’re kinda sad, misshapen little trees, but they’re full of little crabapples. What more can you expect from a parking lot?
It’s that time of year when it’s not really summer anymore, but I’m still loathe to admit it’s really fall. The trees still have their (green) leaves. I can get away with short sleeves most days. But there’s definitely a bit of chill in air, and the beach doesn’t have much appeal. This time of year I tend to stick to simple things in the kitchen. Have a few last chances to just eat tomatoes out of my hand. Spend more time outside before it gets too cold. So here’s a quick recipe equally at home in the summer or fall. Something tasty to eat before you get back to denying that it really is fall.
I think I’m becoming my mother. When I was growing up, anytime we went to a restaurant, she’d find something that she was sure she could make at home and spend half the meal wondering how to make it. More often than not, all plans to recreate Applebee’s chicken smothered in cheese, tortilla strips and ranch dressing (or whatever it was that day) were forgotten by the time we reached the car to go home. But I still think of it as one of my mother’s defining characteristics.
No two foods are more evocative of summer to me than garden-fresh tomatoes and sweet corn. Both fall into the category of “available all year round, but why bother?”. Tomatoes go from juicy, tangy, sweet, vibrant and pleasingly misshapen to pallid, mealy, flavorless, numbingly uniform globes. The sweet pop of kernels in freshly-picked corn becomes starchy mush in the off season. The out of season versions just don’t hold a candle to the real thing. Put them both together and it’s like summer in a bowl. The kind of fleeting pleasure to savor while it lasts and remember (or look forward to) fondly the other 10 months of the year.
Longtime readers know that my dad is an avid gardener. I live a bit more than 200 miles from my parents, so I don’t get to take as much advantage of his garden as I’d like, but a few times a summer I head down there or they come up here. And I always get a few bags full of garden-fresh produce. It’s always more than the three of us can eat before it goes bad, but I try to make use of as much as possible.
