Recipe and a Read: Artist and Author Linda Lee Greene Shares the Fruits of her Labors…

HALLULAH! Cast-iron cooking is
back on the burner of the world’s kitchens, its barbeque pits, and its campsite
fires—and nothing fries up more delectably in the iconic cooker than green
apples, or apples of any color, and even peaches. 

Dating back to the 18th
century, apple and peach orchards have been a constant feature of farm-life of
my American ancestors, and of my European forebears, I imagine. Apples picked
right off the tree or hauled topside from underground cellars and fried up in
an iron skillet, a vessel that was passed down from mother to daughter, has
been a staple of my family through those generations and to the present. Store-bought
fruit will do, too, of course.  

Over low heat, melt butter in a
large cast-iron or heavy ovenproof skillet. Add apples and ½ cup sugar. Mix
well, cover, and cook 20 minutes or until apples are fork tender. Stir
frequently. 

Add optional cinnamon),
remaining sugar, apple juice, vanilla extract, and peach slices. Cover and cook
for another 10 to 15 minutes over medium heat.   

Serve with iron-skillet gravy and country biscuits
at main meals, or with vanilla ice cream for dessert. 

The following is an excerpt of GUARDIANS AND OTHER ANGELS, my book of
historical fiction blended with my family’s actual story. The selection depicts
an amusing, true incident involving apples and my mother Roma before she was my
mother. A delicious recipe for fried apples and peaches rounds out this posting.
Enjoy! 

One of the most enchanting
features of the farm was its peach and apple orchard. Disregarding the fact that
green apples gave Roma the “runs,” and convincing herself that she would get
away with it that time, in a fit of gluttony, she set about one hot summer
morning to stuff her belly full of the sweet green teasers. Predictably, later
in the day, she found herself in dire need of visiting the “path” as this
family called their outhouse, whereupon she sat, for long intervals of time,
for several visits in a row. 

This was back in the day before
fluffy white “Charmin” or any other machine-perforated-roll-perfectly-into-your-hand
toilet paper came on the scene; these were the days when pages from magazines,
newspapers, and the Sears & Roebuck catalog were special favorites for
cleaning the backside. And when paper products ran out, corncobs would do. 

This day, Sears & Roebuck
were on duty, and Roma, having gone through a good portion of the catalog,
pulled up her underpants, and confident her ordeal was finally behind her, pun
intended, proceeded to walk to the back door of the house, the door opening
onto the kitchen. She lighted into her piled-up kitchen chores, working away
uninterrupted for an hour or more, enjoying that peculiar euphoria that comes
to one with the release of all the toxins in one’s body, when she realized that
the house was unusually quiet, a phenomenon never occurring in that
filled-to-human-capacity household. Taking a mere glancing note of it, she
continued to sweep away, when out of the distance she thought she heard what
sounded like a snicker. She hesitated for a moment, listened, but when all was
quiet again, she fell back into the rhythm of her swishing broom. But suddenly,
there it was again – a snicker, then two, then three. She realized she had
company in the room. She turned to look, and there they all were, all nine
members of her family, snickering and pointing at her backside. Horrified, she
realized what was the matter, and twisting her head to get a gander at her
backside. 

Like a dog chasing its own
tail, Roma took off spinning around and around in the middle of the kitchen,
howling like a dog, and flapping her hand at the offending article protruding
from her underpants. In her haste to vacate the outhouse, the tail of her dress
had caught in the waistband of her bloomers, and with it, a page from the Sears
& Roebuck catalog also had fastened itself there, the page waving like a
flag flapping in the breeze and ironically hailing its vivid advertisement of women
underpanties.

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