RIVER CITY JOURNAL: AN APPLE -- OR TWO -- A DAY TASTES BEST DURING OCTOBER

If seasons have symbols, I'd say autumn's logo is the apple.

Others prefer the gourd family: pumpkins, squashes and the like.

But I think apples tell the story of autumn.

Like the lover in that fellow's sonnet -- what's his name again? -- let me count the ways.

First, there is the incomparable crunch of a freshly picked apple straight from a nearby tree.

The rest of the year, we eat apples from Washington state or who knows where, and they are coated with wax. Guess what? When you wash a wax-coated apple, the wax doesn't come off. Wax and water aren't exactly what you'd call bosom buddies. Whenever I eat an apple from some far-off place, I get this coating on my teeth, and it won't go away.

So when the local orchards start putting out a new crop of apples, I like to be first in line.

Apples are hardy, but they don't last forever. You have about a 30-day period where apples are -- well, they're what apples are supposed to be: crisp, sweet and firm.

Second, it's time for apple cider. Good cider can only be made with fresh-picked apples. And the best cider is earthy brown and cloudy. It's hard to find a fruit that can be smashed into as fine a liquid nectar as an apple.

Hot cider? It's OK if you like to mess with natural deliciousness. I like cider cold from the refrigerator. And lots of it.

Third, fresh apples mean apple butter. Younger son, who made tolerably good apple butter with Texas apples while living in San Antonio, returned to his yet-to-be-vacated apartment in Kansas City from his new home in Chicago last weekend. He used real Missouri apples from Waverly on the Missouri River just like his mother and grandmother and great-grandmother have done since before the beginning of the last century.

I hate to be so picky about this, but the only really good apple butter is made with Missouri apples. Yes, I know good apples grow on trees in other states. But Missouri apples are better the way French grapes make better wine than just about anywhere else.

I like to think we've taught our sons some good things about life. Frankly, I can think of few lessons more important than making apple butter in Missouri with apples grown in Missouri.

(Hey, if it gets either of our sons to come home for a weekend every fall, it's good we placed such a high priority on decent apple-butter making techniques. Right?)

Yes, the family recipe from the tattered Methodist cookbook was put to good use again this year. You might change locations or buy foreign apples, but I don't think you could ever get away with a new recipe.

Fourth, it's the season for apple pies, which happens to be something I like to bake.

I've discovered a wonderful technique for making fabulously flaky pie crusts. It's such a good way to make pie crusts that I don't share it with anyone. This is just about the only cooking secret I have, so I don't want to squander it. The only other recipe I keep to myself is my chili concoction that uses a fair amount of red wine. See? Now I'm really down to one cooking secret.

Even if you could get decent apples during the hot summer months, baking apples pies wouldn't be any fun. It's way to hot to peel apples during the summer. And who wants to turn on the oven when the air conditioner is working around the clock?

But fall is a great time for baking pies. Especially great is the smell of an apple pie baking as you come into the house from the brisk air of a fall day.

(For those of you whose allergies keep you from (a) breathing, much less (b) smelling, take my word that fall days and kitchens where apple pies are baking are, indeed, foretastes of glory divine.)

Fifth, let's not forget all the applesauce possibilities. A restaurant we used to go to fairly regularly in Topeka, Kan., had a salad bar loaded with homemade goodies such as hot German potato salad and three-bean salad. And a lumpy applesauce that was sweet enough to be poured over vanilla ice cream for dessert.

Many a time I've eaten so much of that special applesauce before the main course arrived that I couldn't eat everything I had ordered.

My mother has always prescribed apple sauce as a nostrum for upset tummies.

I suggest that really good applesauce is good for perfectly happy stomachs too.

Sixth, how could I ever forget the fried-apple pies mothers used to put in their children's lunches at Shady Nook School over on Greenwood Valley just over the hill from Kelo Valley? How many times did I manage to trade Oreo cookies for fried-apple pies?

And what would I give for a real fried-apple pie right now?

Don't miss apple season. It won't be long before you have to wait for another October.

~R. Joe Sullivan is the editor of the Southeast Missourian.