JOY ALONG THE WAY: THE BEST LITTLE APPLE PIE EVER

First, choose the right day for this apple pie. You know, a Helen Hunt Jackson day when the goldenrod is yellow...apples in the apple orchard...asters by the brookside... .

There must be blue skies too, for you're going to walk the lanes between the apple trees and you want no rain to dampen the wings of the grasshoppers that hop along in front of you as if showing the way.

You can rely on a bag provided by the orchard people, but I prefer to carry my little hickory woven basket to hold the apples I will choose, right off the trees, for the making of my pie. The old basket is just the right size for my needs.

It is the Jonathan apple lane I will traipse, taking my time to choose the just-right apples, listen to the crickets, smell the cidery odor of the orchard and glory in just being alive to experience all the wondrous interlacement of September things.

Back home, I leisurely go about the next pie-making step. No hurry, this is apple-pie day. Sugar, flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, shortening, a pinch of salt, a squirt of lemon juice are sought out and made ready.

Choose about six apples. Starting at the stem end, the first one you peel without breaking the peel, do the old custom of holding the peeling over your left shoulder and letting it drop to the floor. Figure out what letter of the alphabet it comes closest to forming and thus be advised who your boy friend is, or the next one will be. Albert? Bob? Curtis? Don? etc. Suppose it is a Z. That cuts down on the possibilities. However, there's always Zechariah, Zebelon, Zack.

Core and slice the apples and let them rest awhile in lemon-laced water. If you haven't an old blue crock in which to mix the crust, your pie will lack a little something; perhaps memories of watching your mother or grandmother mix pie dough in the same old crock.

In goes the flour, fluffy as a white cumulus cloud in a blue sky. Then the shortening. Amount? Whatever you judge is best.

Add a pinch of salt. If your eye falls on the nutmeg can as mine did this day, add a dash of it to the flour mixture. Got a pastry blender? Use it, pretending you're changing the white cumulus clouds to cirro-cumulus ones. What power you have, changing clouds!

Eat a slice of the apple to see how tart it is, then add the proper amount of sugar to which has been added a little flour for thickening and a little cinnamon and more nutmeg for enhancement.

Pile the apples high in the crust and -- hey, inspiration time! Got some caramel candy on hand? Use it! Put about six caramel squares in a pan with as much milk as necessary to keep them from sticking. Melt them. Pour the melted goodness over the apples in circles like a snail shell and watch it sink in.

Cut strips of pie dough with a pastry wheel in order to get the fancy scalloped edges like that of eyelet embroidered ruffling. Weave these strips across the top of the apples. Over and under, over and under. No cheating. This is to be the best little old pie ever. Brush the strips lightly with milk. Admire for a while before putting into the suitably warmed oven.

Sit and rest a while, reading miscellaneous things about sapphires, asters, the harvest moon and thinking of those you might have in to help you enjoy your pie if your family isn't big enough. Albert? Bob? Curtis? Zenas? Zajam? Zamzummim?

REJOICE!

~Jean Bell Mosley is an author and longtime columnist for the Southeast Missourian.