Diligent housewife that I am, I just got done whipping up a batch of homemade apple butter while simultaneously making a dinner straight out of the Swedish husmanskost* bible, Vår kokbok** and supervising Lydia’s math and reading homework. Too bad the dinner is nothing I’d be caught dead eating (oven falukorv) and the apple butter still has to simmer for an hour or two before it’s ready, or all would be right with my world. (I must confess that all’s right enough as it is, thanks to the box of cookies Olof brought home from the store — they’ll tide me over until I can have some apple butter toast.)

Our two little apple trees have given us a bumper crop this year, which is both delightful and daunting. Last year we got hardly any apples worth keeping so it was a happy surprise that they did so well this year, but we already have more than I know what to do with and there are still plenty left ripening on the trees. A good many of them may have to go into storage in the basement.

*home-cooking
**Our Cookbook