Apple crumble

Yesterday my parents had come over for the day and I thought it would be nice to make some apple crumble, having been inspired by this guy. Unlike Vuijlsteke though I hadn’t had the sense to take pictures, so you’ll have to take my word for it that it went alright for something that I had never done before, thanks in no small part to this very simple to follow recipe. This is the sort of thing Sandra used to do before she got too ill, so it was only natural that I started to think of her again.

Not that she’s much out of my thoughts anyway, her absence running like a subconscious thread through my day to day life. I’ll be doing stuff, looking around me and in some way be reminded of her again. With cooking especially, because she put so much of her heart and soul in it, took so much pleasure in it. She was a much better cook than I ever was. Whereas I would depend on premixed sauces and stuff she’d make meals from scratch and quicker than I could open a package. Cooking ran in her family, her father having been a cook in the army if I remember correctly, having also worked as a chef afterwards. He taught her the tricks of the trade, of how a professional kitchen works and she kep using these for the rest of her life.

She was an excellent baker, with apple crumble being one of her staples, together with bread pudding, banoffie pie and brownies, both the regular and the enhanced kind. It’s not recommended by the way to eat one of those, decide nothing is happening and then eat three more. That was an interesting evening, even if I spent most of it staring at my own hands. Groovy.

But also did classic Georgia barbeque (having lived and worked there in the eighties, telling stories of stopping at a roadside shack after work and picking up barbeque and some melon, not to mention having an R. C. “coler” and moon pie for lunch. Then there were the Sunday roasts, the Christmas dinners, the… Sandra put a lot of love in her food and she showed her love through food, through getting you to eat right and eat well. I try to keep some of that alive by taking the time sometimes to look at food as more than just something to keep the body going, by not going for the cheap prepackaged snacks but make my own.