Alimental Adventures in Autumn!

(But seriously how beautiful is my state?)

It's officially fall here in Chicago and as the sun struggles more and more to conquer the Sears Tower, I find myself missing the incandescence of my Vermont hills in the morning. Of course a detailed description of the foliage this time of year would be completely and utterly useless to most of you readers who can achieve that perennial fixation by any given Robert Frost poem, or of course any of the bazillion postcards that are produced every Autumn. So I'm here to share a different obsession of mine. 


Have you ever been fortunate enough to participate in apple thievery? Well, let me tell you... it's quite popular among Vermont natives (this Vermont native, at least.) Being that there are so many orchards across the state, there is bound to be one right next to a road, right? Well yes, in fact, there are a plethora! I shock even myself with the reality that I only discovered this gem of an idea this past fall, right at the heart of my last year in the green mountains. 

It's easy: Just drive that Subaru up at a snails pace (being as stealth as you possibly can be), creep out and climb onto the shoulders of a particularly tall friend, and grab everything in sight. They may not be the apples which receive the most nurtured love and care, but they are precious apples all the same and should not very well be wasted - left to rot to the core only to plunge to their ultimate demise among the dirt and the weeds of those lonely back roads. And so we save them from this humiliation and present them with a hearty and satisfied life. It's far more of a service, really, than theft....


You may ask, what do we do with these sacred little gifts from our kind orchard keepers? Do we devour them all at once for the sake of instant gratification? Do we bake them into pies and tarts? Do we turn them to jams and butters and smear them on toast? Apple cider? Turnovers? Crisp? All delicious ideas, but were I faced just one more time with a sack full of apples and the infinite forrest free for the taking I would have no choice but to turn to an old friend, the ever confounding Hobo Apple.


On a cool, breezy New England day nearly a decade ago, my brother and I were hijacked into apple picking by my dear mother. Little did I know that it would turn out to be one of the more memorable days of my childhood. Sure, we picked a few apples, climbed a few trees, and fiddled with the cider press, (which alone would have made for a rather pleasant Autumn day) but the joy of the afternoon was born in a barrel. Not a barrel of apples or cider or anything logical of that nature that would typically be found at an apple orchard, but fire in a barrel, similar to the barrels you might catch a glance of in the back-alleys of these Chicago streets, keeping our locals warm. 

*(Come to think of it, this revival is proving to be more and more plausible....)

Crowded around the barrel were several adolescents with apples on skewers, and after further investigation, my brother and I uncovered the Hobo Apple.


Cored and stuffed with cinnamon & sugar, or occasionally Vermont cheddar cheese, the Hobo Apple is roasted over a fire until it becomes slightly charred, and nicely soft. Now of course this recipe can be modified to suit the needs of, lets say, an oven, but in this case the truth is, the integrity of the Hobo Apple suffers. Plus, where's the fun in warming your cold, wind stricken hands in front of a toasty oven light?


As it is now, I may be simply forced to sacrifice two integral steps in the process: No apple thievery possible in the city without ripping off honest farmers market salesmen, and I do believe barrel fires in my dorm room would be frowned upon.