Apple season means time to make a pie
Publisher’s note: Apples are being sold at the Tuesday farmers’ market in South Lake Tahoe, which runs through Oct. 11.
By Debbie Arrington, Sacramento Bee
It’s our favorite fruit and American as, well, its most popular baked good.
A new apple season is here, offering a crisp, sweet edge to fall meals plus the promise of lots of pie – and pie-inspired dishes.
What makes apples and apple pie so all-American?
“It brings people together,” said Ken Haedrich, author of “Apple Pie: 100 Delicious and Decidedly Different Recipes for America’s Favorite Pie” (Harvard Common Press, 250 pages, $14.95). “It’s the closest thing we have, food-wise, to a universal symbol of goodness and contentment.
“It manages to do this with unabashed honesty and not an ounce of pretense. It’s an edible reflection of America’s best character traits.”
And, lucky us, a bountiful apple supply is close by and ready for the picking on Apple Hill near Placerville.
“Right now, we’ve got the early varieties: Gala, Red Delicious and Golden Delicious,” said Scott Larsen of Larsen Apple Barn in Camino. “We’re starting to see the Jonathans and Braeburns, then it will be one after another.”
With 20 varieties in cultivation, the Larsen family has grown apples on its Sierra foothill ranch since the 1870s, making it the longest continually family-run operation on Apple Hill.
