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squash, apples and cheese

This morning I went along for the annual fall pilgrimage to Gays Mills to the squash stand and the apple orchard. Last year Mom, Leslie and Cina discovered a roadside farm stand that sells winter squash of every variety (and pie pumpkins, pictured above) for only 50 cents each! Obviously, everyone wanted to return to this cucurbita bargain bonanza. The squash are straight from the field and still covered in dirt. Limited by space in the car, we only bought 30.

Then we went to one of many apple orchards up in the bluffs above the Mississippi River. We found everyone's favorite apple, a relatively new variety called Honeycrisp, for only $28/bushel, whereas other orchards sold them for as much as $74/bushel! So we had to get a bushel of Honeycrisps to add to the apples we bought the day before. (The $28/bushel apples were seconds, but who cares!) Apparently I missed out on this apple craze all these years including the introduction of the famous Honeycrisps, not living anywhere where apple orchards are prolific. But everyone else walked into the store knowing exactly which was their favorite apple (Gala, Jonathan, Jonagold, Honeycrisp, and so on).

Then we went to the cheese store, where Ryan plugged his nose the entire time. I was delighted that they had a Norwegian brown cheese called Gjetost. I bought it once before thinking I owed it to my Scandinavian heritage to try it out, and it turns out Michael thought it was the best cheese ever. I haven't seen it in a store ever since, until today.

So I am returning to Colorado with a bushel of apples, a dozen squash, a sack of cheese, and at my brother Ben's insistence a few bottles of "the best BBQ sauce on earth," Cookie's Country Style (made in Iowa). From my parent's freezer, add several packages of frozen corn (this summer's harvest), a loaf or two four of my Mom's zucchini bread, and some homemade strawberry rhubarb jam. I guess you could call it a haul. Michael might not have liked my being gone for so long but I at least I can make it up to him with food, and after all, is there any other way?

October 6, 2007 by Lynn in wisconsin | | permalink