From the Blog of Mary R. Woldering
September 26, 2016
Johnny Appleseed Day and “Mile High Apple Pie”
If you don’t live in the Northeast or Midwest United States, you may not have heard of this legendary folk hero. Johnny Appleseed was born John Chapman in Leominster, Massachusetts in 1774. He was a planter with a special love of apples.
At some point in his life, Chapman decided to journey from his home to spread his dream of plentiful apple orchards. He wandered as far as Ohio, planting seeds as he went. As late as 2006 one of his trees was reported still alive.
At some point in his life, Chapman decided to journey from his home to spread his dream of plentiful apple orchards. He wandered as far as Ohio, planting seeds as he went. As late as 2006 one of his trees was reported still alive.
Johnny Appleseed is usually shown with a cookpot on his head to illustrate that he traveled and carried little more that a pot in which to cook his meals. Folk rumor has it that he also carried a flask of liquor with which he eased the doubts of local farmers where he wanted to plant his trees.
In honor of his day, I decided to post a pie recipe. I’ve made this a few times when I’ve been asked to provide dessert for a social event. It’s a deep dish variation on Martha Stewart’s “Mile High Apple Pie“. Like to bake? Make this for an unforgettable fall and winter treat.
Ingredients
- Large ready crust – One for top and one for bottom (or you may make one if you’re inclined)
- 5½ lb firm tart apples (about 16), such as Granny Smith
- Juice of 2 lemons
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 2 tsp ground cinnamon
- 3 Tbsp cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
- 1 large egg yolk
- 2 Tbsp water
- Sanding or granulated sugar, for sprinkling
- French Vanilla ice cream, for serving (optional)
Directions
Oven at 450°F.
1.Peel (optional – I don’t bother peeling them) core apples and cut them into ⅓-inch-thick slices.
2.Place the slices in a large bowl; sprinkle with lemon juice to prevent discoloration.
2.Place the slices in a large bowl; sprinkle with lemon juice to prevent discoloration.
3.In a small bowl, combine flour, granulated sugar, and cinnamon; add to apple slices and toss to coat. 4.Place dough in a casserole or deep pie dish if you are using a bottom crust.
5. Place apple mixture in pie shell, mounding it into a tall pile.
6.Dot the filling with butter pieces.
7.Place the crust over the apples; tuck and trim the edge of dough.
8. Seal, and crimp the crust as desired.
9.Whisk egg yolk with the water; using a pastry brush, lightly coat edge of dough with egg wash.
10. Cut several steam vents in top of dough. Lightly brush surface with egg wash; sprinkle with sanding sugar.
11.Bake on a baking sheet 10 minutes then reduce the heat to 350 degrees.
12. Bake 1-1/4 hours ‘til it bubbles
13. Cool completely and serve with ice cream.
YUM!!!
Now before I present the rest of today’s slightly longer than usual blog, I’d like to announce two things.
First: Book 3 of my Children of Stone Novels – a speculative and historical fantasy (or alternative mythology) Opener of the Sky will be released October 31, 2016.
I’m setting up blog tours and bargain pre-orders for the e-book. They will be available very soon, so stay tuned!
You’ll fall in love with the mystery, magic, romance and drama of the ancient world; a time when, with a little help, a mortal could become a god.
Second: An event where I will present my new novel and hopefully chat with some of you is:
VirtualFantasy Con – October 9-16, 2016.
Where is it? On your computer – worldwide
Where is it? On your computer – worldwide
You’ll be able to meet your favorite fantasy authors and many new ones; enter all sorts of contests, including cosplay, go on blog hops and scavenger hunts, hear panel discussions and even talk to a few authors & so much more. You’ll also win prizes. Friends and I won several e-books, SWAG, gift cards and other mementos from various authors last year. This year it runs longer and there are more things to do!
Here are the tentative dates and subgenres covered:
Sun, October 9th – Epic/Sword & Sorcery (Includes High Fantasy)
Mon, October 10th – Sci-Fi/Sci-Fantasy/Time-Travel
Tue, October 11th – Fairytale/Punk (All versions of Punk)
Wed, October 12th – Paranormal/Urban
Thu, October 13th – Series/Short Stories (All subgenres of Fantasy Series/Collections/Anthologies of Short Stories)
Fri, October 14th – Dystopian/Apocalyptic
Sat, October 15th – Dark/GrimDark/Horror
Sun, October 16th – Children/YA Fantasy
Eight Days of Don’t miss the fun with almost 400 authors! Be there!
Now, back to apples and seeds.
In the 3rd millennium BC, in ancient Middle East, apples weren’t known. The Bible mentions the “fruit” of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, but scholars don’t know what kind of fruit it really was. Later artists depicted the fruit which Eve gave Adam as an apple, because it was a familiar “tree” fruit. There was no ancient Johnny Appleseed who planted orchards around the Mediterranean.
My guess is, this fruit may have been a variety of wild fig or pomegranate.
When Marai, the hero of the Children of Stone Series, stumbles onto the half buried interdimensional craft allegedly piloted by the “Children” the speak and sing to his thoughts non-verbally (and in free verse) to tell him their story and to lure him into their confidence. He encounters a bed of crystalline stone inVoices in Crystal on the vessel, but it also speaks to him. He likens it to a fig and then to a strange bed-sized geode.
Enjoy!
Marai cringed involuntarily. The “thrumm” sound of blurred voices reverberated in his head. As he looked down and his eyes cleared, he saw that the thing his shins had struck looked like an altar. The open surface on the top caused the image to bend before his eyes. It sank inward, forming a deep basin.
Sacrifice…They are going to sacrifice me…he couldn’t begin to tear his glance away from it, even though he visualized an incanting throng laying hands on him to cut out his heart.
We are here
You have seen yourself.
Now, come to us.
Do not fear death
We would never harm you.
Find solace within us.
The clouded white and light that wrapped him like fine wool cleared. At that point, Marai saw more detail. The oval-shaped thing grew out of the middle of a color drenched floor like the wide crown of a strange mushroom balanced on a stalk. It continued to change shape, gradually becoming less of a bowl and more of a thing resembling joined shells.
Seen these things before, he remembered merchants that passed through the wadi station sometimes traded– Pearly looking shells from the Green Sea– This looked like a large version of those things. He averted his eyes. When the shepherd dared to look inside the oval again, the sight of something resembling the seeded center of an immense split fig or pomegranate dazzled him.
It is womb. The voices chorused reverently. MaMa.
MaMa? A woman? No. More like seeds in a pod…Marai didn’t see any part of a woman in it. He had seen the womb and afterbirth of ewes, but this was neither of these. It’s not a sheep or a human woman. Pomegranates and figs contain seeds, like this glowing thing, but a fig can’t give birth to a man any more than I can.
Thoughts without tone filled him, as they did before. Marai knew the creatures who made the voices he was hearing didn’t look like people of Earth.
Not like this, though, he mused, still worried the voices might empower some evil force. This thing isn’t it either. The longer he stared, the more the “pod” began to resemble a giant glassy fruit with seed-crystals crammed into and lining the inside of it.
In his wanderings through the hills, he’d seen large gray stones that, when split open, revealed a nest of glittering crystal shards. This thing was mostly like those. At the same time, it was like a fruit, but still very, very different from fruit or stone. It was all of these things and yet still not one of them individually. That these stones could think, act, and pilot this craft with will alone stunned the shepherd. Amazed, he knew they were the gods in many ways.
“Children made of Stone..” he breathed, panting in a sudden fit of ecstatic joy.”Is this you? The voices? In these crystals here? Really?” Marai felt his heart hammering as if it wanted to explode. He felt the blood rushing in his head and in his fingertips. When he touched the wet place on the upper part of his moustache, he realized his nose was bleeding.
We become all you desire
We satisfy the hunger in you
For woman
For Mother
For child…
Come…….
The voices sighed up at him and through him from within the fig-shell. So much unrestrained love poured up from the seedbed that tears of joy began to involuntarily course down the shepherds’ cheeks. He wept openly in the sheer happiness of his discovery and in grief for the loss of all of the women in his life: his true mother, his wife, the goddess who never answered his prayers and even Houra, because she wasn’t with him to share this moment.
Holding himself upright at the edge of the stone like crystal-filled pod, his thoughts filled with an image of the children as beings of light. They were without any kind of form his soul could comprehend and so intensely beautiful, that any other sight he had ever seen paled by comparison.
Maybe it would be a dreadful thing for men to see the way you appear in your world.
Once before, he sensed as if by magic, they had come here. They wanted him to know their story. Like heedless youths in love for the first time, they had fallen in love with the world of men they had helped create.
They made mistakes. He understood that. They’ve come back to fix the thing that went wrong and to go on uplifting and teaching us.
Long ago, one of them had been left behind as a guardian of their combined efforts. The one they chose had allowed itself to grow too fond of the creatures. Rather than compel their companion’s return with them, they allowed it to continue self-healing and teaching. That failed. It had become even more entangled and had been hard to find.
Now, Marai sensed through their memories, they had come to reclaim the guardian, if it wasn’t too late. This time, they came thoughts and words encased in crystal stone; alive, yet not as men understood life.
How can they do a thing without someone to carry their thoughts? How can they find this other one who is lost? You need me, don’t you? the shepherd asked, taking a step back from the crystalline bed.
If you would touch us…
The voices hushed in rapturous awe as if they had been fed and encouraged by the shepherd’s understanding of their helplessness.
Marai understood that and put out his hand, no longer afraid.
The first crystalline orb he touched was the size of his thumb. It was the same size as all of the rest. Unlike an earthly crystal, it felt like warm, living skin. At the touch of his slightly bloody fingers it turned bright blue. Several other orbs near his hand turned lesser shades of blue. Those further away turned pale lilac, then pink and finally silvery-white again. They begged to be caressed, and petted like the perfumed skin of a woman hot with desire. When the shepherd moved his hand away, the colors purred like a giant, tamed cat; their color fading back to light, shimmering silver.
Lie with us…
As you can see, one of my great joys is of giving much attention to things of a spiritual nature that people often miss in day-to-day life.
I like to read novels of this nature, too, which brings me to a review and a high recommedation.
I recently read a great first novel entitled The Stain by Canadian author Charlene Diane Jones. I hope to interview her in the next week or two right here on a later issue of this blog. For now, here’s my Amazon/Goodreads 5-star review.
The Stain: A Story About Karma, Reincarnation and the Release from Suffering
by Charlene Diane Jones
By Mary R. Woldering on September 22, 2016
Format: Kindle Edition Verified Purchase
Three women; Tahni, Mary and Diana living in three different lands and eras, have lives that flow through each other in a common and repeated bond of betrayal, loss and heartbreak. Tahni from 1650 dies in what becomes a dream experienced by Mary who has gone “mad” in 19th century England. Mary in turn dies before her time, bringing the stain of karma into the present era in Canada where Diana searches her soul through meditation in hopes of healing a self-limiting psychic wound.
The author, Charlene Diane Jones, carefully weaves three women’s lives step by step. She switches between each woman the separate stories unfold. The telling of the tales and the re-living of exactly what happened in each life takes on the power of healing transformation.
I identified with Mary at first, because of my attraction to England in the 19th century, enjoying the rich scenarios and descriptions of life in and morals of that era. In the case of the other women, I found myself gaining page turning interest in what each woman would face next in her life. The story-weaving and world-building skill in this novel is the mark of an excellent author.
Although the novel might be more appealing to readers with a background in spiritual exploration or esoterica, it is written well enough to impress any lover of historical or women’s fiction. Well worth a read. I hope I see more from this author…
The author, Charlene Diane Jones, carefully weaves three women’s lives step by step. She switches between each woman the separate stories unfold. The telling of the tales and the re-living of exactly what happened in each life takes on the power of healing transformation.
I identified with Mary at first, because of my attraction to England in the 19th century, enjoying the rich scenarios and descriptions of life in and morals of that era. In the case of the other women, I found myself gaining page turning interest in what each woman would face next in her life. The story-weaving and world-building skill in this novel is the mark of an excellent author.
Although the novel might be more appealing to readers with a background in spiritual exploration or esoterica, it is written well enough to impress any lover of historical or women’s fiction. Well worth a read. I hope I see more from this author…
What is a cozy mystery?
Cozy mysteries, says Wikipedia, are also referred to as “cozies”. They are a subgenre of crime fiction in which sex and violence are downplayed or treated humorously, and the crime and detection take place in a small, socially intimate community. Think “Murder she Wrote” or Agatha Christie novels.
Our next author guest also comes from Canada – Cozy Mystery Writer Karen Vaughan
Karen Vaughan Author of the Laura and Gerry series books (1-5) and Dead Comic Standing.
1. Who are you as a person? (brief bio paragraph)
I am a lot of things to a lot of people- A wife for the last 13 yrs. to a great guy. A mom to a wonderful 26 yr. old daughter and a grandma to a 6yr. old boy and a 3-month old girl. I am happily neurotic and rather quirky. I have a warped sense of humor and have done stand-up comedy. I have a sarcastic streak which shows in my writing and my Facebook posts.
2. How long have you been a writer?
I started writing in 2005 and decided since I had too much time on my hands writing was a great way to spend time while on sick leave and I penned DEAD ON ARRIVAL. I got it published traditionally along with my next 3 books
3. Are you Traditionally or Indie published?
My first 4 books were published with two different houses and then decided to go indie for different reasons. The primary reason was financial as the costs were building up. I also find I have more control as an indie author.
4. What writers inspired you? Favorite Authors?
My favorite author is Janet Evanovich. I love her comedic style and quirky situations. I guess it was this style that inspired my own.
5. What is your book/series about (elevator speech or quick tweet post)
My Laura and Gerry series involves an amateur sleuth/Crime scene investigator, who has the misfortune of finding dead people.
6. What is the setting and genre?
I write cozy mysteries. They are primarily set in Toronto Canada.
7. Who is your favorite character from your book and why?
I love Laura Fitz. She is the main character in the series. She is not afraid to get involved in a mystery and has a sarcastic streak and will go toe to toe even with the people who want her dead.
8. What character is most like you?
Laura is basically me in a younger person. I wrote her with the guts I wish I had but I gave her my sarcastic sense of humor.
9. If you had a supernatural power, what would it be?
The power to heal as I hate to see people and animals suffer.
10. Would you say your book has a message or underlying theme? What is it?
No real theme I have explored different issues in my books like mental illness and family dynamics
11. How are you marketing your book?
I blog my books and use social media like Facebook and twitter, google + etc
12. Is there one person past or present you would meet and why? It’s hard to just pick one but right now I would have to say Viv (Drewa) my business partner for Owl and Pussycat Promotions. We also write together and get along great.
13. A wonderful thing has happened! Hollywood wants to make a movie of your book! You get to pick the actors & actresses. You want who for your lead characters.
I would choose Alison Sweeny for Laura and Galen Gering for Gerry—(Alison played Sammy Brady on Days of our lives and Galen currently plays Rafe)
14. What music do you hear (what songs) remind you of your story?
Perfect theme song for Laura is ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST. People are always dropping dead around her so it works
15. What are you working on right now?
I am working on the seventh book in the Laura and Gerry series called DEAD TO WRITES.
16. What future plans do you have in writing?
I just want to keep writing until I can’t
17. What links or website do you have? List them below.
twitter handle is @karenvwrites
https://twitter.com/karenvwrites http://karenwrites-writerchick.blogspot.ca blog 2https://www.amazon.com/Karen-Vaughan/e/B004PRN7ZO/ my author page.
Thanks Karen! Keep us posted!
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