Apple Pie in Autumn

The View from Agate Beach

Fisherman Bay to Kjargaard to Richardson’s to Vista; Mud Bay to Aleck Bay to MacKaye Harbor to Barlow Bay and Agate Beach.  According to my odometer, these roads on Lopez Island trace a distance of approximately ten miles.  But according to my memory, these roads trace a much greater, grander distance, a distance full of memories and viewpoints that far exceed any mile measurement.  I first biked these roads more than thirty years ago, long before biking was as popular as it is now.  Back in those days, biking was simply another form of transportation – not the “in” thing it is today.  Either way I loved these rural island roads when I was in my twenties and I still love them now that I'm in my sixties.  I hope I'm still biking them twenty years from now.

The old dock at Richardson's

From the turn of last century through the 1980’s, there was a store at the end of Richardson’s Road where we’d stop to buy ice cream cones.  When my kids were young they loved to explore the funky old place and paw over the tools and toys while they licked their melting cones.  The store burned down in 1990.  I still ride the half-mile “dog leg” out to the end of the road to where the store stood – partly to see the remains of the old dock and admire the view to the south but mostly because it brings back good memories.  One of the best things about returning to a place year after year is remembering the past and living in the present – all at the same time.  In today’s dynamic world this is an important experience.  One of my best memories of this historic site (the old Richardson’s store was on the national register of historic places) is being at the store with my father-in-law.  He used to buy his denim overalls at the store as well as various tools and kerosene.  He’d grown up in the 1920’s in a small town on the coast of Washington.  He loved old-timey general stores and Richardson’s was definitely such a store.  Even though it is long gone, it’s still part of my bike circuit and it brings back good memories every time I loop by.  The gas pumps have been inoperable for years but the price still shows 47¢/gallon.

Lopezian Goats

Over the years, my bike rides, both on Lopez and elsewhere, have become longer as I’ve become a stronger, more experienced biker.  But this sequence of roads on Lopez continues to be a favorite.  There are many parts of the ride that I love.  Sometimes I find myself pedaling through a deep forest; sometimes I ride past old barns and open fields full of cows or pigs and more recently, a herd of goats; sometimes I pass a beautiful old farm house or a dramatic rocky outcrop; sometimes I watch fields being plowed or, later in the year, being harvested; there is one field on my route that is often full of nothing but Queen Anne’s lace and another that is covered with round haystacks. 

When I descend a steep hill I know I’ll be sweating up the other side.  It’s a good feeling to realize I have the strength to do the climb.  One of the best things about regular exercise is that you do get stronger and, as you do, you can do more and you enjoy it more.  This weekend I plan to put my strength towards a good cause.  I am joining other women in the greater Seattle area on an organized bike ride to raise money for a nonprofit organization call WAVE – Women Against Violence Everywhere.  I feel privileged to be able to help this organization and to be strong enough to do the ride.  There are too many women here in the United States and around the world that suffer from violence and abuse.  It is important to educate ourselves and do everything we can to prevent violence against women.  How much better the world would be if every woman (and child) could live without fear.

I’d like to share a poem that I wrote last week.

Lopez Autumn

Fading days of summer

The sun hangs low in the sky

Washing the mowed fields in bright light.

I watch the geese gathering

And see the goats graze

Their babies grown like unruly springs

Bouncing over the cut grass.

In the evening, I bicycle to Agate Beach

I watch the last kayakers load their craft

I pass the sailboats anchored in Fish Bay

And the apples rosy red on the trees.

The plums are eaten and gone.

The sunflowers spent,

Their stems bent in the strong winds.

It’s been a hot dry summer.

We ate crab and garden tomatoes,

We made berry crumbles,

We shucked oysters from Sweetwater.

We caught wild salmon.

We brined it; we smoked it;

We ate it with goat cheese.

Now the rabbits are busy

Filling their nests with nuts.

Rosehips and snowberries

Decorate the hedgerows

Where I ride along Davis Bay

The poplar trees are turning yellow

And the evenings are already cool.

Gone are the sweet golden sunsets

And the warm air in the afternoon

I’m thinking about sweaters and soups.

I’ll find my jacket and rubber boots.

I’ll make an apple pie

For Saturday night

And miss the long late evening light.

By the way, in case you want to make a good apple pie on Saturday night here is my favorite recipe.  It comes from a battered, wire-bound Five Roses Cookbook that my mother gave me in 1963 when my family lived in Ontario, Canada.  I’ve made this pie many times over the years and I’ve never found a better recipe.  It might sound very indulgent to use both whipping cream and butter in the filling.  However, the combination makes the pie very moist and the addition of lemon rind is even more delicious.  This pie gives you a very good reason to go out on a vigorous bike ride or to take a long walk.  Do this BEFORE you eat a piece of pie! 

September is a wonderful time to make apple pie.  We picked the apples from our tree and ate the pie with Lopez Island vanilla ice cream.  If you want to be very traditional, pair it with Canadian cheddar cheese or if you live in Washington, a nice big piece of Cougar Gold – Washington State University’s signature cheddar. 

Deluxe Apple Pie

Ingredients

1 Double Crust Pastry  (I recommend making your crust with a combination of butter and vegetable shortening – the original recipe called for only shortening)

6 apples

6 tbsp. packed brown sugar

1/3 cup(s) sugar

1/3 cup(s) Five Roses All Purpose Flour - or any good quality flour

1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon

1/4 tsp. salt

1/4 cup(s) butter or margarine

1/2 tsp. grated lemon rind
6 tbsp. whipping cream

Preheat oven to 230ºC (450ºF). Prepare pastry and line a 23 cm (9") pie plate, reserving some for top crust. Core, peel and slice apples. Combine brown sugar, sugar, flour, cinnamon and salt together, then mix with apples. Spread apple mixture into unbaked pastry shell. Dot with butter; sprinkle with lemon rind. Pour whipping cream over top; then cover with top crust, sealing carefully and making slits to allow steam to escape. Bake for 10 minutes and then reduce heat to 180ºC (350ºF) and bake for 30 to 35 minutes until apples are cooked.

Just out of the oven...yum

I’ll get back to healthy recipes next blog.  Sometimes it is good to indulge and enjoy the season’s bounty while it lasts!

Circuit Training and Deck Staining

The warm sunny days of August have already run away from me.  Early, much needed rain, signals that summer is almost over.  THe air is cooler in the morning and I've already seen the first V's of geese flying overhead.  The end of August reminds me that summer is precious.  We have to take advantage of every moment, every ripe tomato, every fresh caught crab, every beautiful sunset.  My husband Jeff and I have been doing just that all month.  We’ve been busy fishing and crabbing, exploring and entertaining, and enjoying the bounty of the Pacific Northwest with our friends and family.  

Despite the fine weather, we’ve been going to indoor exercise classes too.  A couple of years ago my husband Jeff and I started doing Circuit training classes at the various gyms we belong to – the Meredith Matthews YMCA in Seattle; Betty’s Academia in Piracicaba, Brazil; and Lopez Fit on Lopez Island.  We are both over 65 and value being fit.  We want to maintain our strength and flexibility well into our eighties.  That goal requires persistence – our bodies are certainly “use it or lose it” objects.  As we age our muscles deteriorate if we don’t use them.  And as anyone over sixty will tell you, everything starts to ache. 

Both Jeff and I have exercised regularly throughout our lives.  We traded running for biking sometime in our early fifties when our knee joints started to complain about the pounding of hard pavement.  Over the past fifteen years, gyms seem to have opened up almost everywhere, offering diverse classes from Pilates and Yoga to spinning (stationary bike riding) and, more recently Circuit training.   We have come to appreciate the benefits of Circuit training classes. 

The American Council on Exercise defines Circuit training as “… a high volume (repetitions), low resistance (weight) workout with short rest intervals and is geared primarily at improving muscle tone and definition, while improving cardiovascular fitness.” http://www.acefitness.org/updateable/update_display.aspx?pageID=605

OK.  But what does that mean?  It means that while you are exhausted after a Circuit training class, you are also exhilarated and stronger and your hips and shoulders don’t ache.  It means that your balance is better and that you can bend down and pick up something you’ve dropped without thinking “ouch”.  In layman’s (laywoman’s?) terms, Circuit training is a series of individual exercises, each emphasizing a different muscle group that are performed and then repeated in sequence for a short time period with a brief rest in between each sequence.  Movements are fast and you get a cardio workout at the same time without even realizing it.  You don’t have to have any prior knowledge to join a class and you don’t have to be “in shape” to participate.  Classes are typically 45 to 60 minutes long.  Each class is set up with multiple stations around an open room.  Each station has unique equipment (e.g., hand weights, a weight machine, a mat, heavy ropes, etc.) and a specific exercise that works a specific muscle group using that equipment.  The classes start with the instructor briefly demonstrating the exercise for each station but if you forget one, she or he is there to show you again during the class.  Depending on the number of people in a class, there might be as few as six or as many as 18 stations.  During the class, you start at one station and do the exercise continuously for 30, 40 or even 60 seconds.  Then you have a few seconds, 15 or 20 to move to the next station.  For example, Station 1 might be a hip raiser side plank – you hold your body, one hip down parallel to the floor, balanced on your feet and one elbow bent under your shoulders on a mat, with your legs and torso in a straight line.  In this position, the goal is to raise your upper hip as high in the air as possible, bring it back down parallel to the floor and repeat again and again until the time interval is up.  

This might sound easy but it isn’t.  Every part of your body’s core, i.e., all your internal torso muscles including your abs, your pelvic floor and everything in between is working.  This is very good for you especially as you age.  Our core muscles hold our bodies upright, help us avoid back pain and injury and give us balance.  Having strong core muscles is very desirable but often doing “core” exercises can be a horrible experience.  In a circuit training class, all the exercises move quickly.  Music is blaring.  The other folks in the class are working hard, encouraging you to work hard too.  And just when you think you can’t do an exercise any more, it is time to move onto the next station.  You can start at any station and go to each subsequent station in turn.  After you complete all stations, i.e., the circuit, you begin again, repeating the circuit two or more times during the class.  Sometimes, after a full circuit, i.e., all stations, the instructor will give a short break so you can rest and drink water.  Sometimes you just keep on going.  The classes usually begin and end with a short stretching session. 

What makes a circuit training class fun is the variety of exercises and the fast pace.  There is no time to linger or worry about whether you can do the exercise.  You just do your best and move rapidly to the next one, following the person in front of you.  Even if you’ve never participated in an exercise class or if you have doubts, you find out you can do almost anything for 30 or 40 seconds, even pushups or bicycle leg lifts!  Sometimes, during an exercise, you can feel so exhausted you can’t believe how long 30 seconds is but you try to hang in there.  The instructor gives encouragement by telling you that the time is half gone or only five seconds are left!  Good instructors walk around the room, moving from station to station and giving each student a little advice, or a minor position adjustment to ensure you are doing the exercise properly.  If you have an old injury and who doesn’t after the age of 60, the instructors at all of our gyms give sensible modifications for any exercise that might be inappropriate.  It is very stimulating.  All of the classes Jeff and I have taken are upbeat and full of camaraderie.   The benefits of Circuit training are remarkable.  Since starting these classes I am stronger and have less aches and pains.  I was afraid at first that I couldn’t possibly do some of the exercises, for example swinging a 25-pound kettle bell between my legs and out in front of me.  Maybe you don’t even know what a kettle bell is!  I didn’t a year ago but I know now and I can do the exercise.  BTW a kettle bell is a weighted ball with a handle, sort of like a round dumbbell.

Jeff and I found out how useful our Circuit training classes were a couple of weeks ago.  Earlier in the summer we had a new deck built at our Lopez Island cabin.  After the deck was built, we needed to finish it with a special oil to help preserve the wood.  As anyone who has ever finished or re-finished a deck knows, it is a lot of hard physical work.  We started out by sanding the whole deck surface including the railings and stairs.  Then we had to wash it down, removing all sawdust and dirt.  Then we dried the whole deck before applying the oil.  The deck is built out of a very hard wood called Ipé – it is a pretty Brazilian hardwood that is raised in sustainable plantations.  We loved the idea of adding Brazilian wood to our Northwest cedar house.  But applying the oil was hard work.  We had to work quickly, painting the oil onto the planks, waiting five minutes and then wiping off excess oil with clean rags.  Of course we were down on our knees, stretching out our arms and legs to apply the oil and then wipe it off.  At one point both of us realized we were basically in a plank position, legs stretched out fully and arms rubbing the excess oil off the deck surface.  We started laughing about how our Circuit training had set us up for deck finishing.  I wonder if I would have been able to do this hard physical work without having developed the strength that our Circuit training has given me.  I don’t think I could have.  So one of the rewards of developing or maintaining strength as we age is the ability to take care of our house.  The deck looks beautiful and, with the rains already beginning, I am pleased to report that the oil is very protective.

As usual, I’m sad to see August end but happy that we finished our deck ourselves without incurring aches and pains.  Being able to do physical work around the house is a great reason to keep exercising.

Now it’s time to harvest our apples and plums and make a last cold soup for supper.  Soon it will be getting chilly and the whole world of hot soups and stews will stretch out before me.   In the meantime, I'm enjoying the early rain and relieved that it will help put out the terrible wild fires the state of Washington has experienced and replenish our over-tapped water supplies.  

Summer sunsets, summer soups

Sunset over San Juan Island

We are having an unusually dry summer here in the Pacific Northwest.  I’ve been spending most of my time up on Lopez Island where it is cooler than in the more urban areas of the Pacific Northwest.  Virtually every day since the beginning of May has been warm and sunny.  My neighbor, who has been coming to Lopez since the 1950’s tells me it is the driest summer ever.  Friends and family in Seattle and Portland tell me it is too hot to enjoy!   I have a broader tolerance for temperature extremes than many people so I don’t feel it is too hot.  I just drink more water.  And a glass of cool rosé too!  That’s in the evening at the attitude adjustment hour….

Yesterday the temperature on Lopez was fifteen degrees above the long-term average.  In truth I love most things about the hot weather.  Just like when I’m in Brazil, I get up and dress in shorts and flip-flops.  I don’t need a coat to go for a walk.  I just trot happily outside and enjoy the warmth and the sun.  In the Pacific Northwest, an added bonus of sunny weather is the golden sunsets.  I have seen so many beautiful sunsets in the last three months I feel spoiled.  Walking down to the beach in the evening and watching the sun dip below the horizon is a peaceful experience.  Recently I visited friends on San Juan Island.  We went to a state park on the western shore and, with other families, watched the sunset turn the world into an orange glow.  Some of the families were camping at the park and the kids watched the late sunset dressed in their pajamas.  What a wonderful gift to give your children – sunset over the water.  One evening on Lopez, my friend Karen built a graceful driftwood arch while the rest of us sat on driftwood logs enjoying her skill and watching the sun dip below the horizon.

Driftwood Arch at Sunset

 This glorious weather makes it easy to stay in shape too – I’ve been outside every day, biking, hiking, boating, walking, weeding – my garden and my daughter’s garden too – weeds seem to love the warm temperatures.  But fortunately, so do flowers and vegetables.  I described my vegetable garden as a jungle recently – it is a jungle!  The runner beans have gone nuts and the tomato plants are huge and laden with ripening fruit.  But we’ve had no rain to speak of and we’ve had to water the vegetables to keep them alive.  This is the flip side and the unsettling side of having continuously hot weather.  It is so very dry.  Any places - wild or cultivated - that haven’t been watered are looking pretty bleak – lawns and fields everywhere are yellow – by mid July the landscape looked like it might be late August or early September.  I read that the kernels in the Eastern Washington dry land wheat crops are not developing properly – it has been too dry.  Forest fires began breaking out in mid-June and the governor of the state of Washington declared a statewide drought emergency in the middle of May.  I recently visited my daughter Sasha and her fiancé Dustin at their new home in Pullman, Washington.  It was even hotter and drier there than in Seattle - this is very worrying for our state's agriculture.  In Pullman, we had to get up early just to go for a bike ride since the midday temperatures were over 90 degrees.  We plan to do an organized 100-kilometer ride in Pullman in mid-August!  We are training and expecting high heat.

Grazing on dry grass

Last week for the first time in three months, I woke up to the sound of rain. I was happy to hear its friendly sound, tap tapping on the metal roof of my cabin.  The forests, farmlands and rivers need the rain. The lack of rainfall is so different than the normal wetness of this region.  It is hard not to believe that the lack of snow pack and the warm temperatures are harbingers of climate change.  I hope that this summer’s drought will not be our region’s new norm.  I wonder how the native forests, fields and animals will adapt to what seems to be a significantly drier and warmer climate.  Of course we don’t know what the future will bring but for sure there is change in the air.  I try not to worry but I wonder if our ecosystems will be resilient enough to respond positively. 

In the meantime I’ve been eating cold summer soups and salads.  There is nothing that says summer to me as much as a cold soup.  I have several favorites in addition to traditional red gazpacho.  One of the best is a recipe that my friend Betty Lou gave me many years ago when I had too many ripe zucchini in my garden.  It is of course, cold zucchini soup – I’ve made it so many times I don’t even look at the recipe any more.  Its creaminess comes from blending not from cream so it is very healthy too.

Zucchini ready for the sauté pan

Proportions are easy and depend entirely on the number of people you are feeding.  I try to keep the onions and zucchini in roughly the same volumes.  I use both green and yellow zucchinis – whatever I have on hand and I’ve even used over-sized patty pans when they’ve grown too big for grilling.  Garlic is of course to taste as is basil and balsamic vinegar.  The basil has to be fresh but it can be any kind – Genovese, lemon, whatever you have grown or purchased at the farmers market!  Use a lot and don’t cook it – the basil's freshness is part of the delicious taste.  Just add the basil when you are blending the veggies with the broth - you can use either a food processor or a blender.  Depending on the audience, I’ve made it vegetarian with vegetable broth or for omnivores with chicken broth.  Either way it works.  I made it recently for a dinner party in my neighborhood.  The zucchini came from one of my neighbor’s gardens.  Here’s the recipe in a poem I wrote that day – an ode to the joy of summer soup!!  Make sure you use a good olive oil too.  It makes a difference.

Cold Soup

Sitting on the edge of the wood stove

Late July heat outside

The cool of the forest inside

I plan to make zucchini soup

With fresh lemon basil and

Yellow onions from the farm.

I need to chop the vegetables

And fry them slowly in olive oil

I’ll watch them wilt and meld together

Maybe I’ll add a little garlic

From Jeff’s garden

And mash the mess together.

Cold soup is my summer tradition

Cucumber or zucchini?

Almond with bread and green grapes;

Sometimes a green gazpacho;

Sometimes red with peppers and cilantro

All are delicious to me.

When winter comes, the cold soups

Go into hibernation

And I braise cheap cuts of meat.

Or cook beans with carrots, celery and onions.

But I can’t wait until summertime - then

I bring cold soup out again.

I hope you make this soup.  I think you will like it.  Don't forget to add a few tablespoons of balsamic vinegar at the end.  That is the secret ingredient!  Soup makes any meal seem a little more of an event.  There is something about serving everyone from the big bowl with a silver or a plastic ladle.  It doesn’t matter which.  Even if you are serving the soup into plastic cups that your family and friends can wander around with, just the presence of soup as the first course will give everyone a feeling of contentment.  Cold soup is the perfect starter for a summer supper.  It gives a meal an elegant tranquility – effortless and gracious!  Ha!  We wish life was always that way.