Back on the 'sauce

My grandfather on my mother's side was an orchardist, growing apples and pears just outside of Yakima. Every fall we would head over the Cascades to visit them, and we always came back with lots of fruit - primarily apples and pears, along with a few cherries from my uncle - stuffed wherever there was room in the car. Under the trunk bottom. Stuffed around suitcases. Sometimes under our feet.

In a somewhat ironic twist of fate, the grandson of an apple farmer can't eat raw apples or apple juice. Makes my stomach hurt. The cooked stuff is fine.

Which brings us to apples. These days, there are lots of different varieties of apples in my local supermarket, but in the 1970s, you could either get red "delicious" or golden "delicious". The "delicious" brand apples were chosen (and subsequently bred) not for their flavor, but for their color and their ability to last in cold storage until the next fall, providing "fresh" apples all year round.

Most orchardists kept part of their orchard in varieties that they would like to eat themselves, and grandfather Schwartzwalter grew Gravensteins, a great apple that doesn't keep well. They will last for a few weeks, but for longer term storage, you need to freeze them.

Which brings us to applesauce. Cut up the apples, run them through the food mill, and put the sauce in containers and into the freezer. When you want a snack, pull out a container, wrap it in a towel, pull out a grapefruit spoon (or better, a melon baller), and go to town. I'd usually eat a cup or so at a time.

I've made applesauce myself when I could find graventsteins, but these days I don't have the time, and I miss eating the frozen stuff. But this week I was walking through Safeway, and came across single-serving containers of Granny Smith applesauce. Not gravensteins, but a decent subsitute. Just toss them in the freezer, and you've got a nice, single serving of frozen applesauce whenever you want it.

So I'm back on the 'sauce...

In a somewhat ironic twist of fate, the grandson of an apple farmer can't eat apples - they make me sick to my sto