Apple Sauce

For the first time ever, the farmer's market had sour apples. Not sour apples like they have on the farm at home. . . But pretty sour.

Which means I had to buy them and make homemade apple sauce.

Apple sauce is crazy easy to make, and there are few things finer than thawing out frozen freshmade apple sauce mid-winter to eat with pork or as a side for a winter sandwich and salad.  (Please Note:  However, I think you have no business making it unless you have a food mill.  Food mills create the perfect silky apple sauce and nothing else will do).


Ingredients:
Apples (at least 4 lbs.)
Water
Lemon peel
Lemon juice
Brown sugar
Cinnamon

Core and cut apples into fourths.

Put in pot with enough water to cover half of the pile of apples. Boil/steam with the lid on the pot for 20 minutes.

 

Place food mill over second empty pot. Once apples are soft, using a slotted spoon, transfer small batches of cooked apples into food mill.

 

Once all apples have been run through food mill, mix in juice of one lemon, 1 heaping tsp cinnamon, and 1/4 cup brown sugar per 4 lbs apples. Taste and then add lemon juice or sugar to suit your personal taste.

Eat right away or freeze. Frozen, it will last throughout the winter.

Quiltin'

I whipped out a simple quilt over two weekends.  If not for a brief power outage, I would have finished it by my deadline of Tom and Casey's visit.  It was meant for little boys to sleep under--that seemed like a lucky way for a quilt to start its life.  But I actually had to finish it in the middle of their visit, doing the last step of hand-sewing on the binding while Zapruderpoint practiced for their Transistor gig.

But it still turned out alright, right?

Nice Things on Nice Walls

"Nice Things on Nice Walls" is a three-artist show currently on view at Columbia College Chicago in the Hokin Gallery of their 623 S. Wabash Building .  I believe the artists are a mix of current students and alumni and it's on view until this coming Friday, July 20th.

And because I went to see the show initially with my friend Jill (I've been back twice).  She is the owner of the Clodfelt elderly couple and I am the proud owner of the photo of children BFFs.

 

It's a show filled with talent. . . and my favorite?  A sense of humor.

A few pieces by Don't Fret

 

Eric Lundquist

 

Pete Clodfelter

And because I went to see the show initially with my friend Jill (I've been back twice).  She is the owner of the Clodfelt elderly couple and I am the proud owner of the photo of children BFFs.

Party

Music, like life, should be a party.  That doesn't always mean everything has to be a hoot.  Sometimes that party is rip roarin', but sometimes it's a salon filled with serious talk and soft cheeses, or sometimes it's a wake--half somber, and the half that is celebratory is still tinged with sorrow--or it could be a small party, an intimate one, just a few of your closest friends or family.

But I hope a bunch of it is like this:


"The Way We Move" by Langhorne Slim & The Law

Luckiness

We've been lucky to have been visited by a number of lovely folks in the last month.

First Auntie M and Uncle David took a short trip to Chicago and treated us to dinner at the Honky Tonk BBQ.

 
And then the Millards--Casey, Tom, Ben, and Hap--all came to stay for a long weekend.

 

We hung out.  They played a show with Dan at Transistor.  And then we threw a big party for all of their friends (and ours. . . :) ) on Saturday--replete with shrimp boil, watermelon, salads, scape dip and so on.

Ben took this last picture.  Rock Photographer Millard credit.

We're unbelievably lucky to have such good people in our lives--both local and far away. . . and it's nice when the faraway ones stop in.