apples to bourbon

Two weeks ago I went to Pine Knot, Kentucky with Matthew to visit his grandma Jane.

Have YOU been to Pine Knot? Ever heard of McCreary County? Well, that's too bad.

It's a few skips away from the Tennessee border and features the Daniel Boone National Forest, several burned down barns, and delicious food if you're staying with Grandma Jane.

GJ fried us fish that she'd caught in her front yard pond, taught us a card game (We played five rounds of 500 Rummy. I won. Just want to slip that in there.) and gave us twenty apples from her yard to take home.

Twenty apples is a lot of apples. There is only so much peanut butter that I can smear on twenty apples and I'm not interested in apple pie so I started looking for other apple recipes.

And it's weird how fun that was because until like three seconds ago, I wasn't that into cooking. Sometimes I'd buy cookbooks with the idea that I'd want to know more, that I just needed to be inspired by the pretty pictures or something. But no, I just ignored the books and made more stir-fries, throwing in a different spice now and again. Woo!

Until this apple binge that brought apple zucchini bread, parsnip and apple soup, italian sausage and apple stuffing, and apple and cheese salad made by my undomesticated hands.

It was all good, too, except for the soup, which reminded me of baby food. Matthew asked how it was and I told him, 'Good. If you're five months old.' It was my fault; I didn't puree it enough and didn't use the spices that Roopa recommended. I made another of her soups, a Thai butternut squash number which ruled so hard I wanted to take a bath in it so I'm not hating on a Roopa recipe. I have lived with this girl. She knows how to mix up food REAL GOOD.

Now that I know that cooking can actually be relaxing, that it doesn't have to induce waves of panic and fear, I'm thinking I'll put on my black apron necromance apron and do it sometimes.

Next binge: recipes containing bourbon.