Something to chew on

As December draws to a close I still find myself a little low on words. It's been a beautiful month of resting and re-grounding. 

It began with the ceremonial stowing of the suitcases after being on the road far too long. Laundry after laundry. Filing, sorting, tidying up my home and making my life mine again.

And then, somewhere mid-sip, I suddenly realized that Christmas was coming. Whoops. No time for nesting or relaxing after all.

Naturally, there had to be Claramels. You may recall I went a little overboard on these last year. But dozens of batches later, I still get just as much pleasure, if not more so, from making these things. There is something deeply satisfying in watching all the raw ingredients amalgamate into something so deep and murky and magical. 

Dark-chocolate espresso, with optional tart Montmorency cherries on right.

To me, Claramels are like edible knitting. They give a similar kind of tactile satisfaction - that of taking simple materials and slowly, patiently transforming them into something else. You have to stay quite aware of your surroundings, since you're dealing with 250-degree sugar lava that will, given the opportunity, burn the hell out of your hand. 

Your mind can still wander and dream, while the physicality of the work keeps pulling you back into the present. Exactly like knitting, right? 

And when it's time to hand-cut that sheet of hardened goo and transform it into hundreds of even little nuggets (each of which gets wrapped in a little square of hand-cut parchment paper), my hidden obsessive-compulsive tendencies joyously spring into action. I may not be able to create order out of the world at large, but I can sure force a tray of candy into submission. 

Right about now is when some people smile and gently ask, "You do know that you can buy those at a store? Already made?" 

Any knitter will recognize that question. I give the same answer. It's all about self-expression. It's about taking slow, patient, meditative steps that produce even and deeply satisfying results. And at gift-giving season, it's about making something with your own hands that serves as a genuine expression of your love, care, or even simple fondness for someone else. 

Only instead of wearing the results of this particular form of self-expression, you get to eat them. How great is that?

Faster and faster

Ever feel like a passenger in a speeding car? Never stopping, always just passing through - eye darting between map and speedometer, mind already preoccupied with the next town?

I knew life would speed up after the book came out, but I forgot by just how much. There was a trip to New York, then Philadelphia, then San Francisco - fabulous journeys all. In between there have been conversations with bloggers and podcasters and radio personalities where I've tried my best to speak in complete sentences. And along the way I have met so many people - genuinely lovely souls - whose smiles and stories still echo in my mind.

I'm home for just long enough to do laundry, repack, turn another page in my calendar and pet the cat, toss more apples on the compost pile (sigh) and make a quick pit-stop at the dentist and optometrist. Then, vroom vroom, back on the road again. This time to the Finger Lakes region of New York for the 10th annual Knitter's Review Retreat. This marks the icing on an extremely large and beloved cake, and I've been so looking forward to it.

All this travel has given me a lot of time to think. To gaze out of windows and briefly pass through other people's worlds without ever settling in. It can be lonely, but also quite freeing. In her blog Orangette, Molly Wizenberg recently described this sensation as Bonus Time:

"You’re in the plane or the train, and you can see the world outside the window, and you’re hurtling through it, but it’s very far away, impossible to reach. Inside, your movements are limited, but time feels oddly expansive, as though you’re getting an extra minute for every three. You’ve escaped from normal time, and your reward is a chance to just sit and relax, or read, or listen to music, or sleep. Or maybe you’ll have to do some work, but it moves along with less friction than usual, because you’re in Bonus Time, and it’s roomy in there." 


I really like that description. Once you've untied the ropes and pushed your little ship away from the dock, there is a peculiar sense of roominess that takes hold. I'll be enjoying more than 22 hours of Bonus Time in the coming week as I travel to and from the KR Retreat. I welcome the travel time to think and dream, process and scheme.

And then? Possibly the prettiest four-letter word ever spoken in the English language: home.

The art of the orchard, and of letting go

The second apple shipment has arrived, and just in time for the weather to turn grey and rainy and nesty. The colors are pretty close to what I see outside my window now. Lots of trees beginning to turn, other branches already bare, the grass sprinkled with crisp leaves as if someone had emptied out a bag of potato chips on the lawn.

If I learned anything from the last shipment, it was not to judge an apple by its exterior. The prettiest apple of them all turned out to be somewhat disappointing in taste and texture. And the skankiest, most pockmarked runt of them all? Spectacular.

Thus I welcome this new shipment with open arms. All the apples were grown organically. They aren't the beefy Iceberg-lettuce apples we find in our grocery stores. They have spots and lumps and all those things that would naturally happen if we didn't intervene with chemical after chemical. They smell like fall, and carry names like Milden, Red Baron, Sweet Sixteen, and Chestnut.

There's an apple called Red Blaze, which originated from one branch of a tree Francis Fenton had growing on his property in Mercer, Maine. The sample here came from one of the only Red Blaze trees in the world. Apparently if I cut it open I'll see a small red stain by the flower end - hence the name Red Blaze.

Meanwhile, if I cut open the Sweet Sixteen and take a bite, I'm told I'll taste cherry lifesavers and a hint of licorice. [Updated upon sampling: It really does taste like cherry lifesavers and a hint of licorice. Amazing!] Also, the gigantic Wolf River longs to be sliced and dried.

I feel as if I've stumbled upon a parallel apple universe to the wool one that I know and love so well, with each variety bringing such varied results, and with so many being overlooked by the mainstream. Two shipments in and I'm already positively bored by the apple offerings at my grocery store.

What will these become? I'm open to any ideas you may have. I did not succeed in eating every single apple from the last shipment, but I did pretty well. Two batches of applesauce, an apple cake, and a particularly succulent tray of apple and candied pecan caramels that were handed out to sugar-cravers at Vogue Knitting Live in Los Angeles last week.

The apple/caramel connection definitely deserves more exploration. What do you think of drying some of those elephant-sized slices of Wolf River and then drizzling them with caramel, sprinkling them with a hint of fleur de sel, and wrapping each one in wax paper for safekeeping? If I time it right, I can give them away at the NY State Sheep & Wool Festival in Rhinebeck, where I'll be celebrating the launch of my third book. Yes, I think I'd like that.

The process of writing a book, and then having your little Word file become an actual three-dimensional book with a life and presence all its own... it's a surreal experience. Deeply challenging and immensely rewarding, but surreal. This last part, the final few weeks leading up to the release, are like the quiet before the storm. You know you should be doing things. Shooting clever promotional videos. Writing brilliant blog posts. Planning ingenious publicity stunts. Stir the pot! Keep the machine going! Productize on the wordification! Sell sell sell!

You also know that once this book is out there, you are exposed. Something very tender and personal is now up for public display. You knew that going into this, but now it's real. People await in the bushes, slingshots at the ready, eager to point out any and all shortcomings. Without realizing quite what's happened, your work has suddenly become an unwitting contestant on American Idol.

Thus I am savoring this last tender moment my book and I have alone together, just the two of us. As it enters the world, it will become something else. I have to let it go. For its sake, but also for my own so that I, too, can begin to move on.

But the least I can do is give it a proper send-off, make sure it has clean laundry, its cell phone is charged, it has a full tank of gas, all the tires are properly inflated.

"Call me when you get there," I'll say for the umpteenth time, knowing that, even then, the call will be rushed, distant, different.

At the last minute? I'll tuck a bag of homemade Claramels where it'll be discovered, perhaps, during a rest stop on the New York Thruway. In one bite, all the flavors, the depth and nuance and subtlety of layered spice and sweet and chew will come together to express all that I couldn't possibly find a way to say in words.

Going Out on a Limb

I can't decide on which sentence to begin this post. The two top candidates are a) "Let the games begin!" or b) "It seemed like a good idea at the time."

I've never joined a CSA before. I'm usually never in one place long enough to enjoy it.* That, and whenever I am home I can't even eat all the produce that's sprung up in my own garden.

But this year, I found a CSA too good to pass up. It's called Out on a Limb, and it focuses exclusively on apples, glorious apples, in all sizes and shapes and tastes and textures, from modern graftings to ancient varieties people have been using to keep the ol' doctor away for hundreds of years.

The first pick-up was today, and it'll keep happening every other week until November. I'm so excited I can barely contain myself.

The kind folks at Rabelais Books offered up their space as Temporary Apple Depot, so there I went. All the apples are neatly bagged and labeled in a long row under the store's giant plate-glass window. You simply walk down the row, trick-or-treat style, and pop a bag of each variety into your own, far bigger tote bag. Some of the apple bags are big and heavy, a few are tiny and light with just one or two samples to whet your appetite.

While I was there chatting with Samantha, the bright and devilishly funny owner of Rabelais, people kept streaming in to pick up their bags, and everybody had the same sense of giddiness. Apples! All those apples! One woman had kept her son out of school for the day so he could join his younger sister and mother on their apple-picking expedition. He promptly unearthed the largest apple of their stash - nearly as big as his head - and bit into it. The last I saw of him, he was lying on the floor in a blissful apple stupor with just the core in his hand.

What to do with all these apples? That is the question du jour. They don't send you away clueless. We all received a newsletter - a vast and colorful piece of research and writing - explaining the backgrounds of each apple, the best ways to prepare it, recipes you may want to try, and even introducing you to the people who would be picking your apples over the coming weeks.

But the first order of business: Which one should I try first?

*I already think there may be at least one week when I won't be around to enjoy my shipment. If you're in the PWM area and interested, drop me a line at Clara AT knittersreview DOT com.