The first glimpse of apple trees when driving in the looooooong line of cars.

Dixon’s apples are a New Mexico tradition. The lines are astoundingly long. It’s amazing the sheer quantity of people that find their way along this road that peters out from highway, to two-lane, to dirt road. It’s oddly reminiscent of a scene from an apocalypse movie, with the long line of unmoving cars, no end in sight. Some pull over to the side to tend to some emergency of the moment. Some abandon their rides and set out on foot, not realizing the distance, or hoping their partners, who stay with the vehicle, will make it the destination in time to pick them up. Some are towing flatbeds trailers, hopes high. Occasionally, a car wends its way back up the road, the occupants inevitably chewing on apples and mouthing astonishment at the long line waiting to get in. And the line inches forward a carlength in response.

Hours later, when you reach the gatekeeper and wait for cars to pull out to make room for you, they quiz you on how many bags you will want. More bags, or the less-robust appearing are herded to the closer parking, the rest are sent off to the more distant lots. These bags, you understand, are 22 lbs. More than enough apples – a quarter of that amount seems like plenty for a snack here and there for an entire family. But people buy several. They take orders from their friends, relatives and coworkers.

Once you find your little space in the parking lot, you take out your wheelbarrow, leave your vehicle, and join another line. People eye your wheelbarrow enviously and ask you where you got it, and you explain, over and over, that you brought it from home. You become very well acquainted with the people in front and behind you in line, as you stand there, waiting, slowing creeping toward the sale barn. A young mother catches a toad to amuse her child, a pair of older women describe all the things they make from the apples. There is a flurry of pointing at the news helicopter as it comes in for a landing, and half joking threats that even they aren’t allowed to cut into line.

Once the line makes it to the sale barn, it’s more of a polite stampede, all alliances thrown aside as bags of champagne apples and jugs of cider are gathered into the wheelbarrows and trundled to the checkout. You feel oddly freed as you roll out of there, liberated from the lines and waiting. All you require is enough patience to fend off the would be wheelbarrow inheritors and avoid running over the desperate people trudging down the dirt road next to the long line of cars waiting to get in.

But, I did this. I acquired the apples, I distributed them to those that requested them. I broke into my own bag for snacking until I emitted appley burps. I then washed, cut up, boiled, drained, filtered, added sugar to and boiled up and jarred a healthy chunk of them. Pounds and pounds of apples and it hardly dented the bag.

And, for all this, I ended up with 3 3/4 jars of apple mint jelly?!

This is what it looked like

This time, I followed the recipe on the LPO newsletter for Calabacitas LPO Style. Well, sort of. You know how it goes. Anyway, you throw a sliced onion in a pan with garlic, in olive oil, saute until translucent, then throw in squash, tomatoes, corn, green chile.  It actually came out pretty good.  I tried to take a picture, but I had eaten my dinner by then, so it kind of looked icky.  Anyway, it used the pattypan squash, some of the corn, green chiles, and the tomatoes from the harvest box, so I was happy.  I added the black beans because everything was yellow or red and it kind of creeped me out.  I think the appearance would be improved by more aesthetic chopping techniques, but it was 10:00 pm at night and I was hungry.   Or, you could throw it in a tortilla so you didn’t have to look at it.

Sorry about the picture.  It really was good.  Except, I didn’t use sea salt.  I have an aquarium.  “Sea salt” to me means crystalized fish pee.  That’s probably not what it is.  Well, if you look at it another way, isn’t that all any of us are?  Sorry.  It’s late.  I’m tired.  My mind is goo.  Also, I forgot the cheese.

But really, what do you think of when you hear “sea salt?”

It hung out for several days.  Honestly, what do you do with an eggplant the size of a cantaloupe?  The problem is complicated by the consideration that I sort of don’t really like eggplant.  Granted, if there are enough bread crumbs, cheese and marinara sauce, I can handle it just fine, thank you.  But, there isn’t enough breading on the planet to accommodate this monster.  I speculated about ratatouille, but, alas, had no zucchini.   Finally, I settled on this: this.

Since the thing was so monstrous, I doubled most of the other ingredients, but it really needs more spices. It has a hint of savoriness, but could use more oomph. However, I live in New Mexico and we eat green chile for breakfast, so take that under advisement. Incidentally, the people who program the spell-check must be Texans, because chile and chili are two VERY DIFFERENT things.

Anyway, it was a satisfactory deployment of the eggplant bomb.

But, I think I was in my 30′s before I realize the Truth About the Garbage Man.  Until then, I had this vague idea that you gathered the icky stuff in the big trashcan, rolled it out to the curb, and someone came and took care of it.  I wasn’t up on the finer details, but I believed when you threw something away, it really went away.

But it doesn’t, of course.

Yes, the garbage men come and dump it in there truck, and the truck trundles off, but it just makes another pile somewhere else.  Maybe they push it around with bulldozers, or shove some dirt over it, but it is still here.  All those candy wrappers and socks with holes in them, those fast food wrappers and plastic bottles; they don’t go anywhere.   It just makes bigger and more architecturally complex heaps. plastic island in the ocean landfill structure

Which is why I am attempting to learn how to start a worm compost bin.  (Ick)  So, I took a plastic bin.  I drilled airholes in it,  filled it with layers of cardboard, shredded newsletter, and kitchen waste.  I’m letting it cook for a bit, then I will add some red wrigglers and hope for the best.

Enjoy that hamburger.

Icky.

First there were 5.5 lbs of apples to wash and cut up.  I boiled them in two cups of water with the mint from last weeks’ Los Poblanos box until it was squishy; then I added two cups of vinegar (?! it was what the recipe said!  Honest!)  Then I strained it through cheese cloth.  It came out pinky-flesh colored and cloudy.   Ooops.  Well, maybe that was the “pink lady” apples.  I could deal with that.  However, only 1 cup of juice came out.  Five pounds of apples, two cups of water and two cups of vinegar make one cup of juice?  It was very bewildering.  However, I soldiered on, adding the appropriate amount of sugar and a smidgey of pectin and boiling it some more until it “jelled”  Then I poured it into jars – or rather jar.  All of it.  All that liquid and huge bowl of apples ended up as this:

This is all I got

One jelly jar a third full.

At least it is sort of a pretty color.  And, I guess I can refrigerate it and use it immediately.

But, still, one third of a jar?

Anyway, Los Poblanos have been bringing lots of citrus lately, and I have been a bit bewildered as to what to do with it. I can only choke down so many. I have found a solution-grapefruit jelly. It’s delicious and, so far, not toxic.

I just squeeze the grapefruit until I get two cups of juice, add two cups of sugar, a box of pectin, boil it for a minute, pour it in the jars, boil the jars for 15 minutes and I’m done. The only mystery is why I end up with so much less than the recipes say I will. The recipe for orange marmalade was bragging about 9 pints. I got two jars. Two, stinking, wretched, little jars. Every jelly recipe so far ends up with two jars total output. It’s kind of Twilight Zoney.

There were potatoes.

I hate potatoes.

Ironically, earlier this week, I had been thinking of trying potato leek soup.  So, I bravely bought some leeks and potatoes.  Then the box came.  With more potatoes.  I now have oodles of the blasted things.

So, I googled and searched and found this recipe:  http://www.fatfreevegan.com/soups/potato.shtml  I liked it’s simple ingredient list and lack of blender intervention.  It would have been nice to use the crock pot, but life does not revolve around nifty new crock pots.

I scrubbed the potatoes (ick), peeled them, rinsed icky potato juice off the peeler.  Weasel hung out underfoot and tried to score escaping potato peels, reminding me that grandfather had a dog that snuck into a potato cellar and ate himself to death on rotten potatoes.  Then I cubed potatoes.  Then I rinsed icky potato off of the knife and cutting board and my hands.  (Did I mention that I don’t like potatoes?)  I threw them in the pot with water to boil.  Alas, I did not add enough water.  They turned into mashed potato paste, the ickyest food on the planet.  I added more water.

Of course, I did a little substitution.  I was out of veggie bullion and too lazy to go to the store to get some, so I dumped a packet of flavoring from Oriental flavor Ramen Noodles in there.  Don’t.  It’s too sweet.  As soon as the smell started wafting up, I frantically dumped rosemary, sage, thyme, and something called “savory” from my spice rack.  Then I dumped more rosemary.  Then more salt.  More rosemary.  More sage.  You get the drift.  Anyway, I think I covered up the unfortunate Oriental flavor.

Also, I had no soymilk handy so I sprinkled on some powdered milk.  Oh, and I didn’t have any chives. 

It came out quite thick.  I added water to it to get it to a sort of soupy consistency, but when it was in the final simmer on the stove, it was making loud “plocking” noises which scared the dog.  However, the little bit I sampled tasted okay.  I guess if you add enough rosemary, sage and thyme to anything, it will end up okay.

Unfortunately, there are still lots more potatoes.  I see potato-swiss patties and maybe a version of white beans with Jerusalem artichokes with potatoes instead of artichokes in my future. 

(shudder)

Of course, I let the Los Poblanos box lapse again.  I re-enlisted.  I’ve also bought a slow cooker.  The image of throwing a bunch of ingredients in there and coming home to dinner was so enticing.  I’ve done a couple of recipes in it.  One was curried something white beans and pasta.  Ho hum.  The other was vegetarian chilli. 

I LOVE my little crockpot!  Reality seems to fall a little short of the “just throw stuff in there and wait.”  There seem to be steps involved like carmelizing onions or soaking beans, but, once I accepted that, it’s been very nice.  (Okay, actually it was the chilli that converted me.  How can you screw up chilli?  It was delicious, and the several little frozen containers of it in the freezer allowed me to savor it for some time.)

Anyway, today I’m trying this:  http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Slow-Cooker-Lentil-Rice-Soup/Detail.aspx.  I like the “throw everything in and turn on the crockpot” aspect of it.  The less I mess with stuff, the less I screw it up.  Also, it seemed to have nice, commonplace ingredients.  I’m not fond of the mushrooms being in it.  (Mushrooms are fungus.  Athletes Foot is fungus.  I’m sure you get my point.)  However, hopefully their fugulness will be mitigated by stewing with all the other stuff.  Hopefully.

“Huh?” I thought, when I read it in the teaser last week.  What is a ‘donut peach?’  I waited to find out.  In my mind, I thought, okay, someone was getting a little sick of health food when they named this fruit.  Maybe it’s, like sweet or tasted donuty to them, or perhaps they liked to use them to make donuts. 

I waited for the mysterious fuzzy globs to appear.  But, no globes came.  Figs came.  I found strawberries in my weekly box, and onions.  Potatoes and eggplant and red leaf lettuce were there.  There were even some herbs:  Basil and cilantro.  But no fuzzy globes were to be found in the box. 

Don’t get me wrong, the donut peaches were there, and once I saw them, I understood the name.  See, imagine a normal peach.  Now imagine stomping on it.  That squashed shape is what gives donut peaches there name.  They’re like an inch high disk-shaped section of a normal peach.    I wish I had taken a picture, but I didn’t, and I’ve eaten all of them, so you will just have to use your imagination.

I did enjoy them, but mostly for their strange peach-tree-planted-too-close-to-the-nuclear-plant quality.  The flavor and texture were comparable with other peaches.  You do end up with a smaller peach to pit ratio; however, I’m not fond of peaches anyway.  At least they won’t roll off the counter.  Maybe that’s why they are cultivated – easier to process?  Actually, I think they are cultivated because they look freaky.  Either that, or someone’s trying to make a positive spin on the nuclear testing.