This week’s poem is a new draft inspired by this season of abundant fruitfulness, as profligate as the seasonal release of new Apple products, this year including varieties of Tahoe 26 and (another!!) new iPhone.
Near where I live in Brighton, many streets are lined with fruit, many falling from trees that are the ghosts of former orchards.
Fruit
The lush gutter waste of crab and cooker,
comice and conference, rosehip and quince:
fruit trees as random as sparrows on the suburb
streets. Windfalls and child's play, tyre-juiced
or crow-pecked, the produce of the ancient
orchard trees, scattered down the road.
Who the planter was, who the harvester now?
Magpie or rat, a lonely badger, mangey fox?
The temptation of the apple's bless of
knowledge a hopeless lost technique,
subverted by its namesake, its horde of ilk.
From garden windfalls I’ve been making roasted cinnamon and ginger apple slices to add to breakfast cereal or yoghurt. Here’s the recipe I’ve been using…
Roasted Cinnamon Apple Slices
You can scale up quantities as required.
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cook Time: 30 minutes
Ingredients
• 4 large apples, cored and sliced
• 2 tablespoons light brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon corn flour
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• ½ teaspoon ginger
• 2 tablespoons butter, melted
• 1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract
Instructions
Preheat the oven to 200°C and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
In a large bowl, combine the brown sugar, with the corn flour and cinnamon. Add the butter, vanilla, and stir to combine.
Add the sliced apples to the mixture and toss to coat the apples thoroughly with the sugary mixture.
Spread the apple mixture on the parchment-lined baking sheet. Bake until tender, for about 25-30 minutes.
Adapted from and thanks to https://www.laurafuentes.com/
