I learned something last night.  Something very important.  How to make the most amazing apple sauce ever and be a lazy ass.  Let me teach you.

Lazy Ass Applesauce

or, How to Wake Up to a House That Smells Like Strudel

Ingredients:

• Apples.  Enough to fill up your crock pot.  In many varieties
• Water
• Brown sugar
• Cinnamon
• Vanilla
• Salt

1. After you finish dinner, cut up apples.  I know, what a pain in the ass, right?  But don’t worry about cutting them up into tiny pieces.  As long as you avoid stems and seeds, all is well.  Leave those skins on.  Don’t you like fiber?
2. Put apples in your crockpot.  Basically you will yield 1/2 the volume of the crockpot.
3. How sweet do you want it?  Brown sugar is more of a flavoring here than a sweetener.  Put in a tablespoon at least, but just crumble some on top.
4. Put some cinnamon in.  I like a lot.  How about you?
5. Put in a very small amount of vanilla.  Less than a teaspoon definitely.
6. I have kosher salt.  i just sprinkled a little bit on top.  You can always put more on later.
7. Now, I have a tendency to put more water than needed in a crockpot, because I forget it doesn’t evaporate.  More water=watery-er applesauce.  I put a few ladles full, in order to wash off the spices on top of the apples.  You shouldn’t be able to see the water through the densely packed apples.
8. Put the top on.  Put it on low.
9. Forget about that.  Do some other stuff.
10. Go to bed.  This is a marathon not a sprint.  Sleep a good 7 hours.
11. Wake up.  Feel extremely happy about the delicious smell in your house.
12. Use a hand blender to mash the now brown and gooey apples.
13. Eat
14. Optionally, you can add a teaspoon of lemon juice in step 4, but it’s mainly for color.

(that’s the wedding march if you didn’t understand my humming. )

I am going to approximately a kajillion and four weddings this year, so I thought I would point out this bit of wisdom I found in a CHOW article I was reading.  It is succinct and brilliant:

“Better to have hors d’oeurves and cocktails only, with no main course, than to have a cash bar.”

My corollary would be “If you are not having a bar*, tell me beforehand so I can bring a flask.”

*And honestly, if you are not, how did I get invited to this wedding, because we’re not friends.

Eating local: Earnest or Elitist? is a really great post/article.  As much as I agree with the idea of eating local (and support it with as much as my food money as is viable/convenient), that the movement continually ignores the fact that being able to make the choice to eat local is, in most communities, improbable and overly expensive, annoys me.  Also, building an infrastructure around local/”good” food to parallel the existing food delivery structure only gets “good” local food to people who have the money to afford it and creates an ever widening divide for everyone else.  I want to get money to farmers who want to deliver the best possible food to my house.  But I’d also like everyone else to get that too….

It’s July 11, or 7-11 day–the day of FREE SLURPEES!  I love Slurpees.  I prefer Coke or Cherry, but the new flavors once in a while turn my eye,  I went to the new Slurpee fancy website and watched a pretty funny video about the Slurpee’s history.  But what gave me pause was that I am currently exactly the average age of a Slurpee drinker.  I am a token of Slurpee goodness! Num num.  I also was given this factt: