applesauce
[ap-uh l-saws]
- apples stewed to a soft pulp and sometimes sweetened or spiced with cinnamon.
- Slang. nonsense; bunk.
*************************
Nick
looked at the counter and blinked in surprise.
Every inch of it was covered with bags filled with apples. There must have been at least a dozen bags
there, and each was stuffed to the brim.
“So, I
take it the apple picking was a success?” He said.
His
wife, Jessica, sighed and looked over the bounty of red and green fruit. “Too much so, yes.” She said.
“Why did
you pick so many? You know we can’t eat
them all.”
“Julie
wants to try her hand at making applesauce, so she insisted we pick a lot.”
“And she
couldn’t have made do with two or three bags?
I mean, how much does she want to make?”
“Well.” Jessica said.
She rubbed the back of her neck and stretched the word out. Nick had a sinking feeling in the pit of his
stomach. “You see, she kind of wants to
try making a unique recipe, so she needs a lot of apples to experiment with.”
“Oh. I see.
And you didn’t say no to her, why?”
“I
tried, I really did. But she got that
look in her eyes and…and I just couldn’t.”
It was Nick’s
turn to sigh. “And here I thought it was
the dad who can’t resist the daughter.
Please tell me you’ll at least keep things simple. You remember the last time she tried to
experiment with food.”
Both of
them let out a shudder at the memory of the ten-year old’s attempts to make a
new kind of cake. They had been scraping
the oddly chunky batter out of the carpet for days.
“She said
she found a few recipes online that she wants to try out first. And I’ll make sure I’m with her the entire
time. I’ll do my best to keep things
reasonable.”
Nick
nodded. He still could not stop himself
from imagining what terrible fate might befall the poor, innocent apples. He would have to pin his hopes on his wife’s
supervision to reign in their daughter’s more unusual tastes and ideas.
“So what
should we do if something does go wrong?” Nick asked. Jessica looked over the rows of plastic
orchard bags.
“If things
get too out of hand, we can always give some away and tell her store bought
apples aren’t good for making applesauce with.
That should take care of it.”
“Okay. Maybe we should hide a bag or two beforehand
though, just in case. You know, limit
her materials to limit the potential damage?”
“It won’t
work. You know she’s a smart kid. She knows how many bags we brought home. Hiding them will only make her want to search
the house for them.”
Nick did
know that. He just hoped that Julie
would not care, and be content with the still large number of apples still available. But, knowing his child, Jessica was probably
correct.
“Well
then, I guess we’d better get ready for anything.” Nick said. “Who knows, maybe she’ll actually make
something good this time.”
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Apples are tasty. That's really all that needs to be said, right?
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