Apple Pie Sandwiches

Week 490, and the tomatoes ripening, the corn arriving, the garden in full production, the heat in the kitchen. I am 68 years old and the days have a rhythm now — the morning writing, the afternoon visits to Cedarhurst, the evening cooking, the weekly blog post — and the rhythm is the structure, and the structure is the sanity, and the sanity is required because the rest of it, the losing and the loving and the carrying, requires a sane woman at the helm, and I am sane, mostly, except when I cry in the car in the Cedarhurst parking lot, which is not insanity but its opposite: the specific, targeted release of emotion in a contained space, which is the most rational thing I do all week.

Halloween; Noah as chef; Hannah butterfly; caramel apples. These are the facts of the week, the data points, the things I would put in a report if I were writing a report, which I am not — I am writing a life, and the life includes the facts but is not limited to them, because the life also includes the way the kitchen smells at six in the morning when the coffee is brewing and the challah is rising and the house is quiet and the quiet is both the grief and the peace, simultaneously, and the simultaneous is the condition, the permanent condition of a woman who is 68 and alone and not alone, who is a grandmother and a wife and a writer and a cook and a caregiver and all of these things at once, always at once, braided together like the challah.

I made caramel apples this week — because it was what the week needed, because the week always needs something and the something is always food, and the food is always the answer, and the answer is always the kitchen, and the kitchen is always mine, and the mine-ness of the kitchen is the one thing that has not changed in sixty-seven years of living, from Sylvia's kitchen on the Grand Concourse to this kitchen in Oceanside where I stand every morning and every evening and many of the hours in between, making the food that is the chain, that is the love, that is the thing I do when I don't know what else to do, which is always, and especially now.

I brought food to Marvin at the usual time. The visit was what visits are now — quiet, steady, the feeding by hand when necessary, the reading aloud always, the holding of the hand that may or may not know it is being held but that is warm and alive and present, which is the definition of love in this particular year: warm and alive and present. He ate what I brought. He received what I gave. The receiving is the relationship. The receiving is the vow. In sickness and in health, in recognition and in forgetting, in the recliner and in the kitchen, the receiving is the marriage, and the marriage continues, one container at a time, one visit at a time, one day at a time, at two o'clock, every day, because the chain does not break.

Caramel apples were what the week called for — Noah in his chef costume, Hannah as a butterfly, the kitchen smelling like October — and apples, in any form, feel like the right answer when the season turns and the house needs sweetening. These Apple Pie Sandwiches carry that same spirit: the warmth, the familiarity, the particular comfort of fruit and sugar and something golden from the oven, which is, in the end, what every week like this one requires.

Prep Time: 15 minutes | Cook Time: 20 minutes | Total Time: 35 minutes | Servings: 4

Ingredients

2 medium apples, peeled, cored, and thinly sliced
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
3 tablespoons brown sugar, packed
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 tablespoon lemon juice
8 slices thick white or brioche bread
2 tablespoons softened butter (for spreading)
Powdered sugar, for dusting (optional)
Vanilla ice cream or whipped cream, for serving (optional)

Instructions

Cook the apple filling. In a medium skillet over medium heat, melt 2 tablespoons butter. Add sliced apples, brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, and lemon juice. Stir to combine and cook for 8—10 minutes, until apples are tender and the sauce is thickened and caramel-like. Remove from heat and let cool slightly.
Prepare the bread. Spread softened butter evenly on one side of each bread slice.
Assemble the sandwiches. Spoon a generous portion of the warm apple filling onto the unbuttered side of 4 bread slices. Top each with a second slice, buttered side facing out.
Grill the sandwiches. Heat a skillet or griddle over medium heat. Place sandwiches butter-side down and cook 2—3 minutes per side, pressing gently, until each side is golden brown and crisp.
Serve. Slice diagonally, dust with powdered sugar if desired, and serve warm alongside vanilla ice cream or whipped cream.

Nutrition (per serving)

Apple Pie Sandwiches — The Sweet That Carries a Week Forward