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| Apple Crumble @ Nonna's |
Overnight, the temperature dropped 30 degrees. It has been so hot the past couple of days, that it was hard to find any relief. This morning, when I got up for my walk, I dug around in my suitcase for layers to put on because I don't have any warm clothes with me. The sky was overcast and dramatic all day long and it was very windy. We went to a couple of farm stands to see what was available, and someone started talking about making soup. This conversation inspired me to make a pot of vegetable soup for our supper. When we returned home from shopping, Ned went out to the side yard and picked apples off of the tree. We had this apple/peach crumble for dessert; this is one of the simplest things to prepare. I picked up a jar of homemade apple butter @ one of the farms we stopped in. I mixed some of the apple butter with Nonna's apples, local peaches, a bit of sugar and cinnamon and a touch of apple cider. For the top I mixed up oats, butter, sugar and cinnamon and sprinkled it on top. I buttered the dish and put it all in the oven on a medium temperature and kept an eye on it. We had it for dessert with coffee ice cream...can't say much more than WOW! It was simple and delicious.....nothing quite as satisfying to me as preparing food (especially home/locally grown) for my family to eat.
I would also like to comment on Hurricane Earl. I was concerned about leaving the East End of Long Island to come out to Nonna's while this Category 4 storm appeared to be heading to my neighborhood. In preparation for it, I put my potted herbs inside so that they would not be damaged or destroyed. After I got here, as they reported on the storm's potential severity, I asked the cat sitter to drop the deck chairs over the side into the yard. I didn't want them to blow into the sliding glass doors. Of course, the timing couldn't be worse for people in communities like ours as this was expected to come ashore on Labor Day weekend....the last big money making weekend for many businesses in our seasonal economy. As the storm lost steam and we were spared what could have been serious damage, comments began to pop up on Facebook regarding Earl. These comments were negative and sarcastic about the "over the top, hyped up" reporting regarding the severity of this storm. Some comments insinuated that the Weather Channel just wants to make money reporting on these storms; the worse the news, the more the viewers will watch and therefore, will stay away from affected areas. Of course, I hope this isn't true. My point here is that I didn't see one comment about how grateful anyone was that it wasn't a Category 4 storm by the time it hit us. We don't have to go very far back in our memories to be reminded of how catastrophic a storm could be---it has only been 5 years since Katrina. Much of New Orleans is still a mess and many people's lives were destroyed and changed forever by that storm. And, if you want to read about a storm where the weather people did get the information wrong, pick up a copy of Isaac's Storm. This is a riveting tale about one of the worst storms in the history of the U.S. Of course it is a terrible blow (no pun inteneded) economically for everyone on Labor Day weekend to lose business due to weather. But if there is a serious storm heading our way, I would rather have too much information than not enough. And I for one am grateful that Hurricane Earl wasn't a Category 4 by the time he paid us a visit.
Expect good things...
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