white apples . a blog

{this moment}

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

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inspired by Amanda Soule. join in on her blog.

can she bake a cherry pie?

I took these photos last summer so I could share this Amaretto Sweet Cherry Pie recipe that I pieced together through trial and fancy and luck. However, when I finally found time to sit down and type out the recipe, it was well into pumpkin season. A post about sweet summer cherries just seemed cruel.

Now those gorgeous cherries are popping up everywhere once again, begging to be nestled into a buttery crust. Here in North Carolina, as in much of the country, temperatures are solidly in the triple digits, accompanied by stifling humidity. The very last thing I want to do is turn on the oven let alone wrestle an all-butter crust into a pie dish before the whole thing turns to a melty, gooey mess. However, you're probably made of sterner stuff than I, in which case, you should give this recipe a try. It is refreshingly different from the traditional cherry pie filling, with the addition of toasted almond slivers, a hint of nutmeg, and a hearty glug of amaretto. I originally intended to make an almond crust, but at the time all I had in the pantry was hazelnut flour (What? Not one of your pantry staples? You can usually find both almond flour and hazenut flour at Whole Foods. Or you can grind up your own nuts until they are fine crumbs.) The hazelnut crust tastes a bit like a Linzer cookie, which triggers all kinds of early childhood food memories for me of Christmas in Germany and road trips to Austria. So I stick to hazelnuts for this one. However, I use this same crust recipe with almond flour as my go-to crust for most sweet pies. It is simple and flavorful and not quite as persnickety as an all-wheat flour crust. The almond flour adds a hint of nuttiness and a wonderful texture, whereas the hazelnuts really pack a flavor punch.

{this moment}

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

*** *** ***

inspired by Amanda Soule. join in on her blog.

Love and Light

Excerpts from Evidence of Things Unseen by Marianne Wiggins:

Maybe soon he'd have to face the fact that everything from here on in was going to make him think of Opal. He thought of her whenever he saw light at play. He though of her while he was seining paper for a capture in the fixative and he thought of her when he saw buttermilk-colored moths mirror-flashing through the bluegrass of an abandoned lot.

How can you identify what you don't know if you don't know it? The great Unknown is not a static. It is peopled. Scattered through with specificity. It's a havoc. Knowledge is at large, for taking, like the air. Still, she thought, there was so much she didn't know that seemed to be the common stuff of other peoples' lives. How to know which books to read. How to read for learning. How to write a letter or a sentence which described the world the way the Mr. Frost described a wood. Or Mr. Eliot the state of solitude.

the fourth of july trip

Juniper has always been up for an adventure. She thrives on new experiences, new places and faces and things to see. The excitement of a whole new house to explore, things to touch, places to run. She loves a road trip, chatting the whole time about all the things whizzing by outside the window, anticipating the destination, savoring the journey, giggling the whole time. She has always been that kid - fearless and adaptable.

 

Owen is wary of anything new. He is thoughtful and cautious and quick to startle. He enjoys the familiar and cozy and predictable. Regular naptimes, regular mealtimes, regular bedtimes. He cried pitifully, heartbreakingly for most of the many hours it took us to drive from North Carolina to southern New Jersey, wondering what on earth might warrant such long and uncomfortable travels.

We had a wonderful Fourth of July weekend with Charlie's family, mostly lounging by the pool or at the beach, enjoying the beautiful summer weather. Juni spent every moment she could in the water, splashing in the waves with her daddy or her uncle, kicking around the pool in her "floaty wings". "Look at me! I'm a Juni fish!" Indeed. When she wasn't channeling her inner fish, she was picking blueberries and riding the carousel on the boardwalk and zigzagging around the little zoo nearby (where she met the most adorable two-day-old baby camel).

Owen avoids the water and the sun, so he spent most of the weekend lounging and dozing and crawling around in the shady spots. He enjoyed a few moments of fun in the sand and a bit of toe-dangling in the pool before crawling back to the sand- and water-free safety of my lap with an expression of mild panic on his face. Though while crawling around on Grandmom's lovely new deck, he did manage to stumble upon some tasty ears of Jersey corn. Little adventures can be just as grand as big adventures, especially for this little guy.