By October 2022 and the land question came to a point. I found a twenty-acre parcel east of Kenwood that had been listed for three months without moving—a seller's inherited property, mixed timber and open meadow, creek running along the eastern edge, an old barn in the back corner that would need work but had good bones. I drove out on a Wednesday afternoon and walked the entire perimeter and stood for a long time at the creek and looked at the way the afternoon light moved through the timber and thought about whether I was ready to make a decision I'd been building toward for years.
I called my bank on the way home. The numbers were difficult but not impossible. The pipeline income had been steady, the catering work added a meaningful supplement, and I had savings that had been accumulating since before the pandemic without a specific destination. There would be a period of tight months. There would be things I couldn't do immediately with the property that I'd want to do eventually.
I made an offer on Thursday. On Friday they accepted.
I sat in my truck in the driveway after I got off the phone with the realtor and didn't move for about five minutes. Then I called Caleb. He said: good. That was it. Then he said Danny would have wanted this for you. I said I know. He said let's go look at it. We went out Saturday morning and walked it together in the October light with the sumac all the way to red and the hickories starting to yellow and the creek running clear over limestone. Caleb said it's the right land. I said I know that too.
That Saturday, after walking the twenty acres with Caleb — the sumac red, the hickories yellowing, the creek doing what creeks do in October — I came home and needed something to do with my hands that wasn’t sitting still. I’d been thinking about this land for years and now it was mine, and the feeling was too big to just watch television. I made a brown bag apple pie: an old method, unhurried, the kind of thing that asks you to slow down and trust the process. It felt exactly right for a day about patience finally paying off.
Brown Bag Apple Pie
Prep Time: 25 min | Cook Time: 1 hr | Total Time: 1 hr 25 min | Servings: 8
Ingredients
- 1 unbaked 9-inch pie crust
- 6 medium apples (such as Granny Smith or Honeycrisp), peeled, cored, and thinly sliced
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar
- 1/2 cup all-purpose flour, divided
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
- 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
- 6 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into small cubes
- 1 large paper grocery bag
Instructions
- Preheat the oven. Preheat your oven to 425°F. Fit the unbaked pie crust into a 9-inch pie plate and crimp the edges as desired.
- Season the apples. In a large bowl, toss the sliced apples with granulated sugar, 1/4 cup of the flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt, and lemon juice until evenly coated. Pour the apple mixture into the prepared pie crust and mound it slightly in the center.
- Make the streusel topping. In a separate bowl, combine the remaining 1/4 cup flour and the brown sugar. Add the cold butter cubes and work the mixture with your fingertips or a pastry cutter until it resembles coarse crumbs. Scatter the streusel evenly over the apples.
- Bag the pie. Slide the entire assembled pie into a large paper grocery bag. Fold the open end of the bag over twice to seal it closed, and secure it with a few staples or paperclips if needed. Place the bagged pie on a large baking sheet.
- Bake. Bake at 425°F for 1 hour. Do not open the bag or the oven during baking. The bag traps steam, which keeps the crust from over-browning while the apples become perfectly tender.
- Finish and cool. Remove the baking sheet from the oven. Carefully tear open the paper bag (watch for steam) and allow the pie to cool on a wire rack for at least 30 minutes before slicing and serving.
Nutrition (per serving)
Calories: 340 | Protein: 3g | Fat: 13g | Carbs: 54g | Fiber: 3g | Sodium: 160mg