Food Network's Shaker Apple Pie
For mine, I make a 2 crust pie dough recipe. (Joy of Cooking, most recent addition, has a good recipe/description of one made in a Cuisinart.) That gets divided in two parts, wrapped in cling wrap, and put in the refrigerator.
Then I peel and core _a bunch_ of apples.
I don't know how many I use, but enough so that when I dump the apples into the pie pan I'm going to use, they mound well above the rim. I always use Macintosh--which I cut up into small pieces--and another baking type apple which keeps its shape, cut into thin slices. Off the top of my head, I'm thinking it's about three Macintosh, a Granny Smith, and maybe two or three Pink Lady or Pacific Rose apples.
The best pies have a mix of apples--what I'm looking for is sweet and mushy when cooked (Macintosh), tart but stays in chunks (Granny Smith, Pippin, or Yellow Delicious, sometimes), and good taste (Pink Lady and Pacific Rose both have a rosy smell/taste to them. I might go with Rome, Cortland, or in-season Yellow Delicious if I'm on the East Coast. Those of you not in America will have to figure this part out on your own.)
The apples get tossed with:
About 1 Cup Sugar--use less and taste the apples before you put them in the pie. You can always add more after the apples have sat. The more rosewater you use, the more sugar you'll need.
1 1/2 Teaspoon Cinnamon
a least a tablespoon of Rosewater, enough to make the bowl smell significantly of roses
and enough Heavy Cream to coat each apple slice once tossed together. Maybe 1/8 to 1/4 cup.
If the apples aren't that tasty, then add lemon zest and a touch more rosewater.
Put this in the refrigerator. Preheat over to 425 F. Roll out your bottom pie dough (Make it thick, so that it just barely reaches the edge of the pie pan.) Toss in Apple Mixture. Place little cubes of butter all over apples, maybe 2 teaspoons' worth. Roll out top crust. Place top crust over apples, tuck edges of top crust under edges of bottom crust, slice two or three vents in top crust. Sprinkle a tiny amount white sugar over crust.
Bake 20 minutes, until top crust is golden. Reduce heat to 350 and bake 50 minutes more until apple juices are bubbling and the oven smells like apples. (Pie may need to be tented with aluminum foil at the end to prevent a scorched crust.)
Very good warm.
Wednesday, April 05, 2006
Tuesday, April 04, 2006
Bridge dream--very disturbing
Kate posted something this week about kiddie fears being worse than adult fears.
And I get that--my brother convinced me that Dracula lived in our attic. My bedroom door was closest to the attic, so when the night came when Dracula walked down the stairs instead of flying out the window..... Egggh. My back sweats just thinking about going up those stairs.
And I can't think of too many things which freak me out in the same way as an adult. It is weird that this emotion shifts over time.
But when I was pregnant with my third child, some switch in my psyche flipped and I started a recurring dream which gives me the willies all day the morning after I've had it. (I didn't have it last night--thank God--I'm still a little giddy from my comments page last night. But I was thinking about fear this morning nonetheless.)
In the dream I'm driving my car with the three kids. The infant is in her car seat, the toddler in his, and the oldest child is in a seatbelt. I'm driving on a bridge high above some inlet on the bay. Slowly and gently the car leaves the lane and crashes over the side of the bridge. I don't fight it much--it's obvious the car is going over no matter how much I fiddle with the wheel.
Now the car is floating in the air, drifting towards the water so slowly that I have plenty of time to think about what is going to happen. The car is going to hit the water, and I'm going to have to get all three kids out of the car, and only one knows how to undo a seatbelt, and none of them swim. What do I say? Sophie's Choice: do I concentrate on helping the eldest because she's more likely to be able to swim with me? Do I tell the eldest how to get out of the car before we hit the water and help the youngest once we're in the water? Can I get all three to the surface? I wake up well before the car hits the water and run various scenarios through my mind for the rest of the day. Yeccch.
This is the one fear I have as an adult which is just as sickening as any trembling encounter with a dark closet when I was six.
And I get that--my brother convinced me that Dracula lived in our attic. My bedroom door was closest to the attic, so when the night came when Dracula walked down the stairs instead of flying out the window..... Egggh. My back sweats just thinking about going up those stairs.
And I can't think of too many things which freak me out in the same way as an adult. It is weird that this emotion shifts over time.
But when I was pregnant with my third child, some switch in my psyche flipped and I started a recurring dream which gives me the willies all day the morning after I've had it. (I didn't have it last night--thank God--I'm still a little giddy from my comments page last night. But I was thinking about fear this morning nonetheless.)
In the dream I'm driving my car with the three kids. The infant is in her car seat, the toddler in his, and the oldest child is in a seatbelt. I'm driving on a bridge high above some inlet on the bay. Slowly and gently the car leaves the lane and crashes over the side of the bridge. I don't fight it much--it's obvious the car is going over no matter how much I fiddle with the wheel.
Now the car is floating in the air, drifting towards the water so slowly that I have plenty of time to think about what is going to happen. The car is going to hit the water, and I'm going to have to get all three kids out of the car, and only one knows how to undo a seatbelt, and none of them swim. What do I say? Sophie's Choice: do I concentrate on helping the eldest because she's more likely to be able to swim with me? Do I tell the eldest how to get out of the car before we hit the water and help the youngest once we're in the water? Can I get all three to the surface? I wake up well before the car hits the water and run various scenarios through my mind for the rest of the day. Yeccch.
This is the one fear I have as an adult which is just as sickening as any trembling encounter with a dark closet when I was six.
Monday, April 03, 2006
Political and Financial Ravings
I have to get this off my chest.
This is long and not funny, so move on if your eyes start glazing over.
Let's assume that you are interested in School Finance. (OK, that's a big assumption, but it is a good idea to believe in six impossible things before breakfast too.) Let's assume further that you have been told that there is a Fund within the Total Operating Budget for the School District which has a deficit. It's not a big deficit, but every year the School Board has to transfer a leeetle bit of money to THE FUND from the General Fund so that THE FUND's ending balance is zero.
The School District's financial solvency is based on what the ending balance is in the General Fund. (In our case, we also have to keep an additional 3% reserve in the General Fund on top of a positive ending balance, but that's just an additional detail.) The General Fund is where we pay our teachers from--it's the fund the Board has the most control over. Then there are Restricted Funds with income from the State or Feds which can only be spent on Restricted things--like on building maintenance, for example. You can't take money for buildings and spend it on books--those are Restricted Funds. But you could take money from the General Fund and put it in the Books and Supplies Fund if you wanted to boost it a little.
In 2003 I started asking questions about a certain fund, THE FUND with the ongoing deficit, because it bothers me to keep transferring money from the General Fund (which could be used to, say, pay for teachers) to backfill a program which may not be running in the black.
Oh! Not to worry, I'm told sometime in early 2004. It turns out that the program which THE FUND pays for actually runs in the black. The deficit in THE FUND exists because of a contract the District paid up on in 1995. Every year a little bit of profit from the program pays off the deficit.
Okaaaay. Then why are we transferring real educational dollars into a restricted fund for no purpose other than to balance a paper debt? (There's no money owed to an outside source, there's no equipment which can be returned. It's from 1995--can we not simply all agree that in 1995 the idiot who was losing us millions of dollars while running the District screwed up?)
Well, Madame Trustee, if you really feel that it is not a Good Idea to keep transferring money to THE FUND, then no more transfers will be required.
Okaaay. Then why were you doing it in the first place? No. Sorry. Don't answer that. I don't care. Let's just stop doing it.
In February we had two Budget Workshops--at the first one I specifically asked about THE FUND. What is the deficit? What does the profit look like? What sort of transfers will be required?
Oh! No transfers. Nope. The deficit will be eliminated by the end of this fiscal year. "Yippee," says I. (I really did say "Yippee!" in Open Session.)
So two weeks ago we had a Board Meeting wherein we were asked to approve a transfer from the General Fund to THE FUND in the amount of $180,000. Huh? I thought no more transfers. Well, this is for salaries through the end of the year--they've run out of cash.
But haven't they been posting a profit for, like, two years? Uh, OK. Don't answer that right now. Please could you present a report to the Board at the next Board meeting with a narrative explaining all the transfers so far and where THE FUND stands?
I got the report on Friday. It's Monday night. I've read it every which way I can, and, beyond the fact that there are no transfers discussed at all in the report, I'm pretty sure I'm being lied to. Because the transfer from the General Fund to THE FUND just doesn't make any sense, following the logic from the newest report.
I'm so sick of this damn fund. Someone asked me about it over the weekend, and I just kept saying, "Down the rabbit hole. I've fallen down a rabbit hole."
See if this makes any sense:
In 1995 the District decides to enter into a contract to operate a program. This program is supported by State and Federal dollars, so all money going towards that program live in a special Restricted fund (THE FUND). The contract is paid out, but that expenditure puts THE FUND into deficit at the close of the fiscal year. (What should happen right here is that the Board should transfer the money from the General Fund to backfill THE FUND at the close of the budget year, but they didn't.) Instead of a one-time end of year transfer, every following year the Board transfers a leeetle bit of money to THE FUND to decrease the deficit in THE FUND.
Except Friday's report says that in 1995 the General Fund transferred money to THE FUND, and then THE FUND paid the contract. Now THE FUND shows an Accounts Payable balance to the General Fund. Every time there is profit within the program, then that goes into THE FUND's Accounts Payable, reducing the amount owed back to the General Fund.
WHAT!?!?!?!
So wouldn't all the previous years' transfers have made the asset/liability balance worse? And why have we never seen a single transfer from THE FUND back to the General Fund to pay back the balance owed in three years?
I have such a headache.
Turns out the Superintendent, who drafted the report, who's also the director of the program operated by THE FUND, will be out of the office all week. Including the day of the Board Meeting on Thursday when she is scheduled to present this report.
Ummmmmm. Not happy.
And just so you know--I hate school finance. I'd rather talk about curriculum. But I'm stuck doing school finance ad nauseum.
This is long and not funny, so move on if your eyes start glazing over.
Let's assume that you are interested in School Finance. (OK, that's a big assumption, but it is a good idea to believe in six impossible things before breakfast too.) Let's assume further that you have been told that there is a Fund within the Total Operating Budget for the School District which has a deficit. It's not a big deficit, but every year the School Board has to transfer a leeetle bit of money to THE FUND from the General Fund so that THE FUND's ending balance is zero.
The School District's financial solvency is based on what the ending balance is in the General Fund. (In our case, we also have to keep an additional 3% reserve in the General Fund on top of a positive ending balance, but that's just an additional detail.) The General Fund is where we pay our teachers from--it's the fund the Board has the most control over. Then there are Restricted Funds with income from the State or Feds which can only be spent on Restricted things--like on building maintenance, for example. You can't take money for buildings and spend it on books--those are Restricted Funds. But you could take money from the General Fund and put it in the Books and Supplies Fund if you wanted to boost it a little.
In 2003 I started asking questions about a certain fund, THE FUND with the ongoing deficit, because it bothers me to keep transferring money from the General Fund (which could be used to, say, pay for teachers) to backfill a program which may not be running in the black.
Oh! Not to worry, I'm told sometime in early 2004. It turns out that the program which THE FUND pays for actually runs in the black. The deficit in THE FUND exists because of a contract the District paid up on in 1995. Every year a little bit of profit from the program pays off the deficit.
Okaaaay. Then why are we transferring real educational dollars into a restricted fund for no purpose other than to balance a paper debt? (There's no money owed to an outside source, there's no equipment which can be returned. It's from 1995--can we not simply all agree that in 1995 the idiot who was losing us millions of dollars while running the District screwed up?)
Well, Madame Trustee, if you really feel that it is not a Good Idea to keep transferring money to THE FUND, then no more transfers will be required.
Okaaay. Then why were you doing it in the first place? No. Sorry. Don't answer that. I don't care. Let's just stop doing it.
In February we had two Budget Workshops--at the first one I specifically asked about THE FUND. What is the deficit? What does the profit look like? What sort of transfers will be required?
Oh! No transfers. Nope. The deficit will be eliminated by the end of this fiscal year. "Yippee," says I. (I really did say "Yippee!" in Open Session.)
So two weeks ago we had a Board Meeting wherein we were asked to approve a transfer from the General Fund to THE FUND in the amount of $180,000. Huh? I thought no more transfers. Well, this is for salaries through the end of the year--they've run out of cash.
But haven't they been posting a profit for, like, two years? Uh, OK. Don't answer that right now. Please could you present a report to the Board at the next Board meeting with a narrative explaining all the transfers so far and where THE FUND stands?
I got the report on Friday. It's Monday night. I've read it every which way I can, and, beyond the fact that there are no transfers discussed at all in the report, I'm pretty sure I'm being lied to. Because the transfer from the General Fund to THE FUND just doesn't make any sense, following the logic from the newest report.
I'm so sick of this damn fund. Someone asked me about it over the weekend, and I just kept saying, "Down the rabbit hole. I've fallen down a rabbit hole."
See if this makes any sense:
In 1995 the District decides to enter into a contract to operate a program. This program is supported by State and Federal dollars, so all money going towards that program live in a special Restricted fund (THE FUND). The contract is paid out, but that expenditure puts THE FUND into deficit at the close of the fiscal year. (What should happen right here is that the Board should transfer the money from the General Fund to backfill THE FUND at the close of the budget year, but they didn't.) Instead of a one-time end of year transfer, every following year the Board transfers a leeetle bit of money to THE FUND to decrease the deficit in THE FUND.
Except Friday's report says that in 1995 the General Fund transferred money to THE FUND, and then THE FUND paid the contract. Now THE FUND shows an Accounts Payable balance to the General Fund. Every time there is profit within the program, then that goes into THE FUND's Accounts Payable, reducing the amount owed back to the General Fund.
WHAT!?!?!?!
So wouldn't all the previous years' transfers have made the asset/liability balance worse? And why have we never seen a single transfer from THE FUND back to the General Fund to pay back the balance owed in three years?
I have such a headache.
Turns out the Superintendent, who drafted the report, who's also the director of the program operated by THE FUND, will be out of the office all week. Including the day of the Board Meeting on Thursday when she is scheduled to present this report.
Ummmmmm. Not happy.
And just so you know--I hate school finance. I'd rather talk about curriculum. But I'm stuck doing school finance ad nauseum.
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