Second Dessert

All day I was craving a baked apple. The season, is my guess. My chilled office, another.

When I was a kid, I went through food periods. There was the summer sausage and mustard sandwiches for most of grade 5. I stripped that down to just mustard sandwiches for most of grade 6. The baked apples didn't last that long, but I made them enough times that I still remember what my mother's coring knife felt like in my hands.

Do like this:
- cut the core out of an apple, from the top, leaving the bottom intact
- into this party pouch, stuff butter and brown sugar and cinnamon and raisins
- bake at 350 till the butter and sugar stuff is well mixed, and the apple is as soft as you like it
- let it cool down, since hot butter is hot

But for one, I don't have any butter in the house and for two, I mean really. Just because it involves fruit doesn't mean it's healthy. And I know it's dessert and blah blah blah, but I mean, really.

I turned to our friend, the internet. I found a recipe for baked pears. I fucked around with it.

Like this:
- quarter and core pear
- put it in a shallow baking dish with some currants
- stir together apple juice, a bit of lemon juice, nutmeg and cinnamon
- pour over pears
- bake at 350 till the pear is as soft as you like it

And you know how it turned out? Unsatisfying.

Why I thought that juice, even when it is two kinds of itself, could be a reasonable substitute for butter and brown sugar, I don't know, but I had a visceral wave of disappointment when I pulled the dish out of the oven and the sauce wasn't rich and caramelly.

I hadn't even known I was still expecting that.

Anyroad, I ate the pear, which was a good pear. I ate the currants, which were good currants. I poured the now mulled apple juice into a glass and added a shot of whiskey, which is really the most satisfying part of no longer being a kid.