Delicious Reading: 'Eating Well'

In this column, I have often mentioned how much my Grandma Rell influenced me in the kitchen. She didn't attend culinary school or make elaborate dishes. She grew up without a mother during the Depression in the tiny town of Chebanse, Illinois, so she taught herself to cook simple food and plenty of it (when she could) with lots of love (all the time). Her twin sister, my Aunt Tene, was actually always considered the better cook by their collective children, but that might just be because she had perfected pie crust and didn't serve as many vegetables (Grandma sometimes would set out sliced tomatoes, green beans, cucumber salad and macaroni -- then realize she forgot the meat.)

Grandma and Aunt Tene developed dementia during the last years of their lives. When they eventually went to live in a nursing home, my mother went to see them every day. She found their visits went better if she had a task for them to do, so she started bringing apples with her. Even though their memories and verbal skills were fading, they had not forgotten how to slice and peel apples. Instead of goodbye, "Thanks for helping me with this, Mom. I'll go home and make us a pie and I'll bring you a piece tomorrow," were the parting words. My mom made a lot of pie in those days, and Grandma never got tired of having a piece (preferably with a little Dairy Queen soft serve), or helping slice the apples.

In the almost 10 years since her passing, I haven't made a lot of apple pies. However, every fall I love to take my kids apple picking at Eckert's Farm in Millstadt, Illinois. My sister and her family join us and we have a wonderful day of family fun. We feed goats and run through corn mazes and eat apples right off the tree as we fill our bags in the orchard. In our delight of a beautiful fall day, we always pick a few too many. This year, I decided to turn the extra into apple butter.

I found a perfect recipe in Eating Well magazine. Eating Well was first published in 1990 and then ceased production in 1999. It was reborn in 2002 and is still going strong. Now a quarterly publication, it "treats food as a serious subject, and a very interesting subject, journalistically," its founding editor, James M. Lawrence, said. "And we want readers to get 50 or so recipes they couldn't get anywhere else."

Also available online (www.eatingwell.com), the magazine strives to promote healthful eating by highlighting fruits and vegetables that are in season, introducing wholesome ethnic dishes and providing ways to modify comfort foods to lower their fat, sugar and sodium content.

I thought of Grandma as my mom and I peeled and sliced the freshly picked apples while we watched the Emmy Awards.

Grandma probably wouldn't have understood the trendy "chai" aspect of this recipe, but she would have loved the taste of it, I think.

She definitely would have approved of how easy it is to make in the Crock-Pot.

And she might have also told me again about the first time she had my mother try apple butter.

Mom came home worried that a boy at school was so poor, he was eating a mud sandwich. Grandma quickly figured out it was apple butter and had all of her kids bring "mud" sandwiches to school then, too.

I hope you love this recipe as much as I do -- and that as the aroma of simmering apples and spices fills your home, so will warm, wonderful memories.

Slow Cooker Chai Apple Butter

__Ingredients:__

5 pounds apples (the magazine suggested McIntosh, but Golden Delicious and Jonathan were in season when we were picking at Eckert's, so that is what I used), peeled and sliced (1/2 inch thick; about 16 cups)

2/3 cup packed dark brown sugar (I added just a little more)

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

2 teaspoons ground cardamom

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

2 teaspoons ground coriander

2 teaspoons ground turmeric

1/2 teaspoon salt

__Directions:__

Combine apples, brown sugar, vanilla, cardamom, cinnamon, coriander, turmeric and salt in a 6-quart or larger slow cooker. Cover and cook, stirring once or twice, for 5 hours on high. Set the lid ajar and continue cooking, stirring occasionally, until the apples are almost broken down, about 2 hours more. If desired, puree in a food processor until smooth. (But I like mine a little chunky.) It is delicious on raisin toast!

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About Brooke

Brooke Clubbs is a Jackson mom of three, a freelance writer and a communications instructor.