Apply Ally

Along my journey..........

 I've started more cider......

 I've humbled myself with a child-like journal cover......

 I spent afternoons reading and researching ......

 I began some of the preparations.......

 Tinctures, oils.....

 of leaf and twig........

 And learned a lot so far.....

about my apple ally. 

Her fruit most markedly as food, her bark and leaf as medicine, and seeds as fertility charm and potential tree. I've baked her up for dessert and smothered her recklessly in local whip cream. I sliced her up and braised her with chard for dinner, and stewed her with pears for a compote. I've started a mother vinegar and have yet to discover it's success. What I'm loving about my ally choice, is how intimately it is involved with my other current obsession: fermentation. For thousands of years people have been fermenting apples; apple peels, apple juice, apple sauce, and adding apples to other fermentations to ensure it's yeast activity. 

And in love? Apple is always in love. Oh the love! I can hardly begin to recite the history of affairs the apple has had. From ancient Celtic fertility rites, to Eve, the Apple is the quintessential love fruit. And being the easiest, most accessible libation for old farmers to make and keep on hand, the credit for amorous behavior is no surprise. 

For many, the apple in raw form causes terrible stomach discomfort. True for me. But the moment it's processed into sauce, sparkling cider, butter, or cooked, the problems dissolve. I've yet to come across concrete explanation for this, but I can make educated guesses. 

In tea-medicine, the twig infusion was the most palatable. It quickly reminded me of the delicious appley-sweet leather kind of flavor I find in good-quality bacon. Without the bacon flavor. I'm a fan of both. 

And interestingly, the twig infusion is incredibly soothing to the gut. 

On my dresser I have six seeds from an apple I ate. They are drying, and I will attempt the impossible challenge of trying to sprout them. Perhaps. I wonder. Really, I'm charmed in my curiosity.