In search of apple cider

I'm about to set a dangerous precedent here by letting y'all know that I'm willing to take the advice of all my comments posters. You see, I spent Saturday traveling to Oak Glen, California, in search of apple cider and cider doughnuts, per the recommendations you made in the "Y'all need to love on apple cider" entry.

What we did right: headed to Oak Glen.

What we did not do right: stopped at Parrish Pioneer Ranch.

Not that there's anything intrinsically wrong with the place, but the crowds were a little daunting, and after two hours of driving, the set-up (a big barn, wherein you can buy pre-picked pecks of apples, plus a truly daunting array of apple-based products; an art gallery, which sadly did not feature artists gone mad and painting dark, Francis Bacon-like tableaux prominently featuring apples; a restaurant and bakery, neither of which had the doughnuts) was a tad prepackaged. The tour bus probably should have been a clue.

Because crowds get old fast, we grabbed a big bag of Rome Beauty apples* and a jug of unpasteurized cider, and beat feet.

In retrospect, I should have done more legwork, as I see from the list of farms in Oak Glen that there is at least one farm that lets you pick your own fruit. We just didn't drive long enough to get to Riley's Log Cabin Farm.

(And this fetish for picking my own apples totally makes me think of the piece on MaryJane Butters I just read in the Oct 11, 04, issue of the New Yorker, "The Simple Life, Inc." The article's not online, but the issue's worth hunting down, as it also features an eye-popping article on Russia's HIV epidemic, "The Devastation," and David Denby's piece on Scottish philosophers, "Northern Lights," is an especially timely read for anyone who's already in an 18th-century frame of mind from Neal Stephenson's The System of the World.

ANYWAY, Aside from the amusement to be derived from realizing how writer Dana Goodyear appears to dislike Butters, the story's valuable for Butters' contention that yuppies love to play farmer, an observation backed up by the Oct 8, 04, WSJ article "Fancy Farms," which details the four-figure vacation one can take pulling lettuce and taking cooking classes at a British Columbia orchard. One imagines actual farmers can take this information and laugh all the way to the bank.

And it also opened my eyes to what is apparently a whole new world of post-Martha domestic snobbery. You can read Butters' Nov 03 diary on Slate. Discovering the "farmgirl" phenom hours before taking off for an apple firm is a fine exercise in cognitive dissonance, I tell you what.)

HOWEVER, we did make one fabulous and unexpected find. As we were leaving Parrish Pioneer Ranch, idly speculating that the pioneers probably did not have to cope with tour buses, I pointed out that we still hadn't gotten the doughnuts. So we pulled over to check out the Cider Barrel restaurant, which is down the road a little ways from the ranch, walked into the apparently-unnamed bakery next door, and stumbled on an incredibly charming baker who makes the best cookies I've had in a while. For $1.50 a cookie, they had better be good, but this woman -- who apparently sells her cookies as "the Cookie Lady" but does not have a website -- is seriously gifted.

So: lady next to the Cider Barrel, fabulous baker, go visit. And thank you to everyone who commented. I had a wonderful Saturday courtesy of your information. It was doughnut-free, but the snickerdoodle I had, along with the cider, just about made up for it.

* These are probably my favorite apples, as they're excellent both for snacking and for cooking. Phil's already planning applesauce, and I'm going to be making at least one apple crisp, if not more. I'd also like to see if these apples can be used in the Apple Mac And Cheese recipe culinary stud Alton Brown whipped up for Macworld. And maybe a week from now, there will be the Rage Diaries entry, "Y'all need to hate on apples, as I am sick of eating them." Or maybe not.

Comments

[Monkey Ben]

While I'm thinking about it, here's the recipe of the apple-cider cocktail I made for Phil on Saturday night. I call it "Apple-Cider Cocktail":

3 oz. apple cider (unpasteurized)
2 oz. Laird's Applejack
1 oz. Sweet Vermouth

Shake and strain into a cocktail class. Makes two drinks.

If I'd been thinking straight, I probably would have garnished with an apple slice or an apple peel. Oh, well. Next time.

[Becky]

Speaking of yuppies playing on the farm, there was an article in the NY Times recently about a family vacation in Amish country.