One day this fall, just south of the Wisconsin border we turned into a tidy U-pick apple orchard that was impeccably manicured. The kids tumbled from the car, happy to be free after an hour and a half drive. They ran around on the grass and on wood-chipped pathways that ran in between two big flowerbeds. My friend Amy and I walked over towards a white tent surrounded by absolutely gorgeous apple trees laden with fruit, red wagons lined up in 3 neat rows and an older man with furrowed brows scowling in the direction of the kids. He had a 10 am 6" cigar stuck in his mouth. The kids turned to run towards us, and then came the full frontal attack from cigar guy:
"...Hey, git those kids outta da flowerbeds... Listen, if you want to have kids here, you gotta watch em at all times!!!! dey can't run around screaming and climbing the trees and picking apples dat aren't ripe. see dat sign? It says, no children allowed unless accompanied by an adult at all times..."
Then the Mrs. of the orchard came out from behind the back of the tent and her first word was not "Hello" but "Are you looking for a petting zoo? Or rides?, 'cause you ain't gonna to find that here, you might want to go somewhere else"
Whoa! What kind of U-pick place is this? Amy and I looked at each other and I knew we were both thinking the same thing: load everyone back up into the car and leave ASAP. But we stayed promising to closely watch the kids. The fruit looked too good. Plus the reason we chose that farm other than the fact that they had a picture of a two year old girl biting into an apple on their web page (which I took to mean "family friendly") was because it DIDN'T have a fee to park, a fee to enter the orchard, rides for a fee, and expensive apples.
The Mr. and Mrs. warmed up to us after a while and by way of an apology cigar man said, "your kids are OK. They're doin' great". I said, "you must have had some bad experiences with kids here huh?" He told us about a couple of times when parents were not supervising their kids and a boy had done a lot of damage to apples with a jackknife and another boy had climbed up to the top of a tree and broken some branches.
Although the fruit was excellent and the owners were actually friendly in the end, I think we need to find an orchard where our "city kids" can run around and cut loose a little. If they can't do that in the countryside then where? (I don't want to give the name of the orchard. I think they just woke up on the wrong side of the bed that day, and I am sure that any small family farm needs all the business they can get to survive.)
Is it just fate that we will get crankier as we get older? I hope not, but it is a noticeable trend.
OK- on to applesauce, because I love any excuse to use my china cap which I bought half my life time ago at a Kiwanis sale in Ann Arbor, MI.
Homemade applesauce is hands down the best. Here is a simple recipe:
Cook 10-15 apples whole or core them. Combine with 2 C. of water, 1/4 C. brown sugar, and 1t. cinnamon over medium heat. Cover pot, and stir apples every few minutes. After 20-30 minutes, the apples should be soft and mushy. Let them cool, and then use a China Cap, or any other food mill/strainer to mash apples into apple sauce. If you don't have a china cap, you can use a cuisinart to make sauce, but make sure to core apples before cooking them, otherwise it will be hard to pick the seeds and stems out before processing the cooked apples.
We went to an orchard a couple of weeks later that I can heartily recommend. It is Ela orchard in Rochester, WI. It's not a u-pick, but the apples and pears are beautiful and delicious and most importantly, the owner, Bob is warm and open to people of all ages coming to his farm! You can feed the goats who comically gum the apples, drooling away, until they are the right size for swallowing. Here are a few pictures:
The last picture is my very own Honey Crisp.
