I fear I will be forever paying the price for not recognizing a fig. A couple of weeks ago, My Man was out walking the Fonz. Senora Anna stopped him and gave him a huge metal pail filled with several different kinds of apples. This was accompanied by a large basket with partially rotting tomatoes underneath more apples.
We decided to make an apple pie. Simple enough- that would help with the apple abundance situation. We would figure out some plan for the tomatoes later. My Man reminded me that some apples were better suited for apple pie than others. He suggested I go ask Senora Anna which ones were to be used as such. He was assuming she would know her apples. He was assuming she would be familiar with apple pie. I didn't want to go, but I did.
Sheepishly, I walked into the bustling hair salon and caught Anna's attention-and everybody else's for that matter. I started asking her my question before I remembered that she is always in a hurry and rarely listens to my full question. Off we went, up the stairs to her house- leaving the woman in her chair with wet hair and a mystified look on her face.
Once in her kitchen, she began buzzing about and flailing her arms. She grabbed an apple and showed me how to peel it. She then showed me how to eat the apple by giving me a taste from her paring knife. It's good, see? She also pointed out the rotten spots and told me not to eat those. Then she flew over to the stove and insisted I take some tomato sauce home. (It was diced tomatoes with salt and some olive oil). After being unable to locate any vessel for transport- and spilling some on the floor, she covered the pan with an inverted plate. Then she went to the kitchen table and started wrapping up her leftovers from lunch for us to try. At some point she opened the freezer door and a fish flopped out onto the floor (it looked vaguely familiar) - she seemed really bothered by this incident and mumbled her apologies.
Soon, I was back on the street. I was no wiser about the apple selection and had a lot of leftovers to take home.
Next time, maybe My Man should go...maybe he would have better luck.
The pie turned out to be very tasty. Perhaps enough sugar and spices can make any fruit taste delicious!
The sauce was a bit plain for our taste. It also contained a dark black hair.
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