Webletter Contents
• Central Washington Early Winter Weather

• Waldorf Salad for a Crowd

• Jona-Go-Red Apples

• Taffy Apples Recipe

• Peach Leather Recipe (also good for Apple and Quince)

• Archive Feature - Selling Apples Photograph by Russell Lee

• From the Fruit From Washington Mailbag

• Quick Click Highlights for Winter

• Special Days

• Winter Art - Landscapes & Other Subjects

• Land for Sale

DOG by Harold Monro

You little friend, your nose is ready; you sniff,
Asking for that expected walk,
(Your nostrils full of the happy rabbit-whiff)
And almost talk.

And so the moment becomes a moving force;
Coats glide down from their pegs in the humble dark;
The sticks grow live to the stride of their vagrant course.
You scamper the stairs,
Your body informed with the scent and the track and the mark
Of stoats and weasels, moles and badgers and hares.

We are going OUT. You know the pitch of the word,
Probing the tone of thought as it comes through fog
And reaches by devious means (half-smelt, half-heard)
The four-legged brain of a walk-ecstatic dog.

Out in the garden your head is already low.
(Can you smell the rose? Ah, no.)
But your limbs can draw
Life from the earth through the touch of your padded paw.

Now, sending a little look to us behind,
Who follow slowly the track of your lovely play,
You carry our bodies forward away from mind
Into the light and fun of your useless day.

Source: Excerpt from Harold Monro's "Dog"

Month of December
Featured Recipes

Taffy Apples

Select rosy-red apples, free from blemishes of all kinds. Stick into the core of each apple a small stick or skewer, which you can buy from your butcher. Hold by this stick while dipping the apple and while eating it.

Make the sirup by boiling together 1 cupful of sugar, 1 cupful of brown sugar, 1/2 cupful of water, and 1/2 cupful of vinegar. Cook the mixture until a small amount, dropped in cold water, will crack when pushed together between the fingers. Dip the apples in this sirup, making certain they are coated thoroly. Lay them on wax paper to dry, or better still, prop them up on their sticks to dry. Source: My Better Homes and Gardens Cook Book (1930)

For more fruit candy recipes, see the FruitFromWashington.com Cookies and Candies recipes page.

Peach Leather

Stew as many peaches as you choose, allowing a quarter of a pound of sugar to one of fruit; mash it up smooth as it cooks, and when it is dry enough to spread in a thin sheet on a board greased with butter, set it out in the sun to dry; when dry it can be rolled up like leather, wrapped up in a cloth, and will keep perfectly from season to season. Schoolchildren regard it as a delightful addition to their lunch of biscuit or cold bread. Apple and quince leather are made in the same fashion, only a little flavoring or spice is added to them. Source: The White House Cook Book, 1899.

For more dried fruit recipes see the FruitFromWashington.com Fruit Drying recipes page. For more heritage recipes, see our Heirloom Classic recipes page.

Q&A from the FruitFromWashington Mailbag--
Apple Head Dolls, Apple Cider Donuts, Dried Pears, Winesaps and Hosuis.

Q: I was told you had instructions for making an apple head doll on this site...I can't find those instructions anywhere! Please help. Wonderful site by the way...I love apples, and even more now!! Thanks so much for information about making an apple-head doll...best regards, G.B., Susanville, CA (11/1/05)

During the holidays you may find yourself cooking for a crowd. In which case Grandma Barbara's Waldorf Salad for forty may be especially useful for you. "On Monday, October 24, Dee and I drove to Long Beach (on back roads) for the semi annual three day reunion of the Pacific Northwest Chapter. Our car was loaded down with apples, which we shared with the family, and veterans and Super 8 Motel folks. Everyone expects us to bring apples. The Auxiliary ladies provide a pot luck dinner for the members on day two, and everyone expects a Waldorf salad!! I increased my "two serving" recipe to approx. 40 servings. There are always lots of helpers, and you can imagine the fun we have." - BCE, 10/30/05

Waldorf Salad for 40
(approximate measures - I didn't even measure...just filled a large pan and a mixing bowl with apples) - BCE

24 cups apples, quartered and sliced in wedges
12 cups celery (approx. two bunches) strings removed and sliced
5 3/4 cups dressing: Miracle Whip about three cups home canned fruit and syrup (apricots or peaches or pears -- the favorite is apricots) syrup blended to right consistency, and some of the fruit chopped in small pieces.
Rose's Lime juice -- very small amount -- about one or two tablespoons "to taste."
Raisins (we used golden this time - delicious)
Nuts on the side in order to accommodate the allergies.

Note: If the quantity here is too great, you can reduce it using Katie's Recipe Quantity Calculator.

MOONLIT APPLES by John Drinkwater

At the top of the house the apples are laid in rows,
And the skylight lets the moonlight in, and those
Apples are deep-sea apples of green. There goes
A cloud on the moon in the autumn night.

A mouse in the wainscot scratches, and scratches, and then
There is no sound at the top of the house of men
Or mice; and the cloud is blown, and the moon again
Dapples the apples with deep-sea light.

They are lying in rows there, under the gloomy beams;
On the sagging floor; they gather the silver streams
Out of the moon, those moonlit apples of dreams,
And quiet is the steep stair under.

In the corridors under there is nothing but sleep.
And stiller than ever on orchard boughs they keep
Tryst with the moon, and deep is the silence, deep
On moon-washed apples of wonder.

The FruitFromWashington.com
Archive Feature of the Month

More USDA photographs taken between 1937 and 1943 during the Farm Security Administration (FSA) era are found at the USDA Historical Photos webpage - www.usda.gov/oc/photo/histfeat.htm. The entire FSA collection is held at the Library of Congress and the National Archives and Records Administration.

The FruitFromWashington Archive Feature metaphorically blows the dust off of an image or document from our past and brings it to the light of day for a new audience to see.

Still, the essential charm of the farm remains and always will remain: the care of crops, and of cattle, and of orchards, bees, and fowls; the clearing and improving of the ground; the building of barns and houses; the direct contact with the soil and with the elements; the watching of the clouds and of the weather; the privacies with nature, with bird, beast, and plant; and the close acquaintance with the heart and virtue of the world. The farmer should be the true naturalist; the book in which it is all written is open before him night and day, and how sweet and wholesome all his knowledge is! In the Catskills, by John Burroughs

Compare winter landscapes and scenes in artwork by Butler, Gág, Schiele and Arcimboldo.
Theodore Butler's Farm Orchard in Winter, (1904) oil on canvas, The Caldwell Gallery, New York.
Wanda Gág's Winter Garden, 1935 Lithograph. Library of Congress.
Giuseppe Arcimboldo's Winter, (1573), oil on canvas, Museé du Louvre, Paris, France.
Egon Schiele's Winter Trees, 1912, oil on canvas, Private Collection.

Also, more Orchard Landscapes and Fruit Still Life Paintings can be found in our Virtual Art Gallery.

Eastern Washington view acreage for sale —
Vanderbilt Country Estates (VCE) is located within the orchard districts of the south hills of the Kittitas Valley in central Washington, on the eastern side of the Cascade Mountains. Covenants are attached to land sales to protect the overall quality of the entire development. VCE features amenities such as a pedestrian and equestrian trail system for the private use of members of this rural development. Phase II lots that are available are about three acres to about seven acres in size and prices vary accordingly. New residents may either farm their own open land or have it farmed for them contractually to preserve the current tax status. (Click for more).

Quick Click Highlights for Winter
• Welcome the Holidays • Blessings, Graces & Toasts • Winter Celebration: Poems, Stories, Recipes & More • Winter Garden Tips
• Winter Time Literary Quotes • Virtual Art Gallery of Fruit
Still Life, Farm & Orchard Scenes • Cookie Recipes • Fruit Dessert Recipes • Horse Treat Recipes • Northwest Weather Links • Searchable Recipe Database • Washington State School Children Postcard Exchange • Computer wallpaper by Katie Eberhart:
Winter Orchard Images or Holiday Apple Images • Share the Cheer and the Nostalgia by sending friends and family a Virtual Historic Christmas or Winter Postcard • November 2005 Calendar • December 2005 Calendar