A Weekend Divided Largely into 5-Minute Increments

Maxx
September 2010 Outside Raleighwood, NC
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If I was thinking about this more I would have taken a series of photos -- the large box of apples, the table filled with peeled, cored and diced apples filling two large pots and several additional bowls, the slow cooking-down process down to applesauce, the even slower transformation of applesauce to apple butter over two days, the canning process and the sealed pints lined up in the sunlight. Even better, I could include photos of the dozen or more minor burn marks on the backs of my hands from erupting splooshes of molten applesauce from trying to keep it stirred -- a process that needed to be done every five or so minutes to keep the apple mush from burning on the bottom of the pots.

(Five minutes allowed me to do very specific tasks: search for the CDs I wanted to listen to; look up specific agents online; work on specific sentences of my query; pet the cats)

Alas, I was not thinking about that thoroughly. So, in it's place, I offer you a(nother) picture of a cute cat.

(As I described him in a comment to a photo Bonn posted, "Maxx: Taking Cute to New Levels Each and Every Day")

I can report, however, that Arkansas Black apples only rob the sweeter apples of their sweetness and their skins do not "just melt" into the applesauce and "turn it pink." I won't be using them again.

Last weekend, a bushel of apples (Fuji, Red Delicious, Golden Delicious, Gala) made 13 quarts of applesauce. This weekend a bushel of apples (Fuji, Red Delicious, Golden Delicious, Gala, Arkansas Black) made 12 pints of (very brown) apple butter. (That's 3 gallons, 1 quart vs 1 1/2 gallons)

Apple buyers beware!

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