Harvesting Wonder

And An Apple Recipe To Satisfy Your Crowd

Our family’s starry-eyed affection for apples started about 15 years ago. In the summer of 2009, my husband’s Northern Virginia painting business sputtered out and died, and we moved back to Shawn’s hometown to lick our wounds. We were broke, and I mean that in every sense of the word. We’d smashed our metaphorical piggy bank and snatched up every spare coin we had just to move ourselves back to Lancaster. By the time we got there, our hopes of growing Shawn’s business, buying a home of our own, and getting out from under all of our suffocating debt were laying around us in soul-severing shards.

To my unending gratitude, my in-laws opened their gracious arms to us, and into their basement we retreated, carrying along with us duffle bags and plastic bins stuffed with our clothing and our babes’ toys. It’s tempting to make this story so much more dramatic by painting a Dickensian portrait of our basement home—a dingy, mildewed lair where our children slept in every stitch of clothing that they owned just to keep away the chill from the cold cement floor they laid upon while Shawn sat for hours each evening at a rickety wooden table under a hanging bare lightbulb, poring over the Help Wanted ads as I scrubbed our tattered and faded laundry in a washtub beside him.

What a beautifully tragic scene! But alas, the truth was far more hopeful.

My in-laws’ basement was a warm, carpeted refuge with cheerful yellow walls adorned in vintage soda shop decor, a kitchen, a large bedroom, a full bath, and a laundry room. Since there was only one bedroom, our children did sleep on the floor. But instead of cold cement beneath them, each night they laid atop a heavenly cloud of blankets their grandmother made a habit of collecting. Bedtime looked like a page out of the Princess and the Pea fairytale as they rose to their luxuriant perches. It was a cozy haven for all of us in the midst of a tumultuous season of our lives.

This became our home for the next 6 months. While Shawn worked odd jobs and tried to start up a co-writing business, I stayed busy in the basement homeschooling our two older babes while also trying to keep our baby and toddler fed, clothed, and safely entertained. And while I was so grateful for our basement sanctuary, sometimes my kindergartener’s insistence that 2+2=5 and my first graders refusal to read sentences longer than 3 words and my toddlers use of the toilet bowl as her personal bathtub and my baby’s blow-out diapers made the space feel too small, too confining. On those days, I loaded up my ragamuffin tribe and we took to the winding and wondersome roads of rural Lancaster County.

It was on one such outing when my babes and I discovered a small Amish market stand on White Oak Road. When we pulled into the small parking lot, I noticed an intriguing display underneath the tin awning beside the wooden building: a dozen crates were lined up, piled high with apples. Above each crate was a sign with the name of each apple, a brief description of its taste and texture, and suggestions of how to use it. I put the car into park, the babes scrambled out, and our minds proceeded to be blown.

Up until that point, we thought we knew about the full gamut of apple varieties: Red Delicious (our go-to for the sweet eaters in our family), Yellow Delicious (too soft), Honey Crisp (too pricey for our meager budget), and Granny Smiths (the go-to for our sour lovers). But now, within our very reach, sat a dozen new varieties. And according to the Amish woman smiling behind the counter, the next week (depending on what apples were ripening in their orchards at that very moment) there might be a dozen new ones for us to try out: Fortunes, Crispins, Winesaps, Ginger Golds, Ida Reds, Staymans, Libertys...each name invited us into a whole new experience.

We filled a small basket with one apple from each bin, paid for our treasure, and rushed home to cut them up for our “taste test.” Gathered around our basement kitchen table with the youngest napping in my arms, my babes lingered over each slice like a sommelier searching out the floral notes in a glass of Riesling. We picked our favorites—each some version of crisp, sweet, and, ironically, sour—and tucked the second bests away in the fridge to make applesauce later. And for that hour, I didn’t worry about bills that we couldn’t pay or how we’d ever afford to move out of the basement. I only thought about apples and the delight they brought to my curious babes and their worn thin mama.

And that’s where it began.

Now, each autumn, our family ventures out to a local orchard to do our very own apple picking. We trudge out in our rain boots and old shoes, plodding over rows of apple strewn ground that emanate the sweet pungent scent of fallen fruit. Our tastes have matured past Red Delicious and Granny Smith these days. Instead, we fill our boxes with Pink Ladys, Macintoshes, Cameos, Cortlands, and our house will smell of apples for weeks. We’ve also matured past a family of six. We now have two more in our brood, and each one is a seasoned apple connoisseur in their own right.  

This year our two oldest babes were home from college on fall break during our yearly outing. And even on the brink of adulthood, they still call from within a tangle of branches, arms stretching up to limbs I will never reach, and pull down a piece of wonder. “Look at this one I found!” they shout to the rest of us. And we look up from our own efforts to cheer their harvest, as if in their hands they hold a clutch of gold or diamonds. But, no, it’s something far better than that.

They hold an apple.  

Mai’s Apple Nacho Bar

I wish I could say that this concept was the result of my own burst of genius, but alas, it’s not. Unfortunately, I’m not sure with whom to credit the idea because my daughter introduced it to me after she stumbled upon a recipe on the internet. The OG was simply apple slices drizzled with peanut butter and chocolate and cleverly labeled “Apple Nachos.” I did, however, take the revelation a step further by expanding it into a whole experience. Hence, the Mai’s Apple Nacho Bar.

Nacho Ingredients:

1 to 100 apples, sliced (You can choose your apple count based on how many mouths you’re feeding. If they are over-the-top apple lovers like my family, cut one apple per person. Otherwise, one apple per two people should suffice.)

2 tbsp. peanut butter per apple, warmed on the stove top or in the microwave (I like the natural, peanuts-only brands here—and everywhere, if I’m honest—but I’m not in the business of shaming, so use what you will.)

2 tbsp. melted chocolate (Of course, I like to use dark chocolate because it not only tastes good but packs in extra doses of fiber and minerals with each bite.)

This part is as easy as it looks. You simply slice the apples, arrange them on a plate, and drizzle them with the peanut butter and chocolate. Then the real fun begins. Depending on the occasion, you can surround these fruity nachos with a vast array of delicious accompaniments. Below I’ve offered a few possible spreads to consider. And I’d love to hear your ideas in the comments!

Toppings Bar Options:

Do-It-Yourself Breakfast Spread: Granola, chia seeds, goji berries, dried cranberries or blueberries, chopped walnuts

Afternoon Snack Time: Raisins, chopped peanuts, crushed Cheerios, finely diced strawberries, sliced almonds

Indulgent Friday Night Dessert: mini M&M’s, white chocolate shavings, graham cracker crumbs, crushed pretzels, chopped candied pecans

Photo by Priscilla Du Preez 🇨🇦 on Unsplash