Apple Crumble Pie — The Smell of October, The Taste of Enough

The lake does what the lake does. The blog gets written when the words come. The Thursday soup gets ladled. The grandchildren get fed. The rhythm holds. The rhythm is, I think, the great gift of this period of life — the kids stable enough that I can settle, my own grief settled enough that I can produce, the kitchen open enough that the family can come and go. Sophie's daughter Ingrid is walking now. She walked across the kitchen and grabbed my leg and looked up at me and said "Mor" — the Swedish for grandmother. Sophie is teaching her Swedish, or as much Swedish as Sophie remembers, which is enough for the basics. Ingrid said "Mor" with the perfect Swedish O, the rounded back-of-the-mouth O that only a child still learning sounds can pronounce. I cried. Sophie cried. The dog watched us with the patience of a saint. Sophie is pregnant again. Another baby. Due next year. I will be a great-grandmother of two. The cheat sheet on the refrigerator is going to need updating. I have a small piece of graph paper taped inside the pantry door with a family tree on it. I update it after every birth, every wedding, every death. The paper is folded at the corners now and slightly yellowed at the edges. The tree has many branches. The branches keep coming. I cooked Roast chicken with apples this week. Whole chicken roasted with apples and onions and sage. The drippings make the gravy. The smell is October condensed into a kitchen. Damiano. The kitchen back-room I have known for over twenty years. The pot. The ladle. The faces. Gerald. The work continues. The work is the same work it has been since 2005. The continuity is, I think, the gift the Damiano Center gives me as much as the gift I give it. We hold each other up. Erik's house is empty now. The Fifth Street house has been sold (the new owners are a young couple from Hermantown, they are kind, they have promised to take care of it; they will paint the walls and tear up the carpet and the kitchen will become someone else's kitchen and I have made my peace with this, mostly). Erik's own house in Lakeside is being cleared out. I helped on Saturday. I packed Erik's coffee mugs. I held one for a long minute. I put it in the box. It is enough. Paul is not here. Mamma is not here. Pappa is not here. Erik is not here. They are all here in the kitchen, in the smell, in the taste, in the wooden spoon and the bread pans and the marble slab. The dead are not where the body went. The dead are in the kitchen. I have been reading the Bible more lately. Not in any new way. The same passages I have known since confirmation class in 1977. The Sermon on the Mount. The 23rd Psalm. The book of Ruth. Whither thou goest, I will go. The repetition of the verses is its own form of prayer. The verses do not change. I change. The change is held by the unchanged words. It is enough.

The week Ingrid walked across my kitchen floor and called me “Mor,” I had apples on the counter and sage in the air — the whole house smelled like October made solid. I had already roasted the chicken, but the apples kept pulling at me, the way apples do in autumn, insisting on one more thing. This Apple Crumble Pie came together that same afternoon, with the drippings still cooling and Sophie still wiping her eyes at the table — because a day like that deserves something golden and sweet to close it, something that fills the kitchen with the same warmth that a grandchild’s voice does. The crumble on top is forgiving, the way good things are: it doesn’t have to be perfect to be exactly right.

Apple Crumble Pie

Prep Time: 25 minutes | Cook Time: 55 minutes | Total Time: 1 hour 20 minutes | Servings: 8

Ingredients

• For the crust:
• 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/3 cup cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
• 3–4 tablespoons ice water
• For the apple filling:
• 6 medium apples (such as Honeycrisp or Granny Smith), peeled, cored, and thinly sliced
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
• For the crumble topping:
• 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup rolled oats
• 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 6 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces

Instructions

1. Make the crust. Combine flour and salt in a large bowl. Cut in cold butter with a pastry cutter or your fingertips until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Add ice water one tablespoon at a time, stirring gently until the dough just comes together. Shape into a disk, wrap, and refrigerate for at least 15 minutes.
2. Preheat the oven. Heat your oven to 375°F (190°C). Lightly grease a 9-inch pie dish.
3. Roll out the crust. On a lightly floured surface, roll the chilled dough into a 12-inch circle. Carefully transfer to the prepared pie dish, pressing gently into the bottom and sides. Trim any excess and crimp the edges. Place in the refrigerator while you prepare the filling.
4. Prepare the apple filling. In a large bowl, toss together the sliced apples, granulated sugar, flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, and lemon juice until the apples are evenly coated. Pour the filling into the chilled crust, mounding slightly in the center.
5. Make the crumble topping. In a medium bowl, combine flour, rolled oats, brown sugar, cinnamon, and salt. Add the cold butter pieces and work them in with your fingertips until the mixture forms clumps and holds together when pressed. Scatter evenly over the apple filling.
6. Bake. Place the pie on a rimmed baking sheet to catch any drips. Bake for 50–55 minutes, until the crumble is deep golden brown and the apple filling is bubbling around the edges. If the topping browns too quickly, tent loosely with foil after 35 minutes.
7. Cool before serving. Let the pie rest on a wire rack for at least 30 minutes before slicing. Serve warm, as-is or with a scoop of vanilla ice cream or a spoonful of whipped cream.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 390 | Protein: 4g | Fat: 15g | Carbs: 62g | Fiber: 4g | Sodium: 190mg