Nights grow longer in the fall, and out in our olive grove things look different at night. I like to walk among the trees and take pictures with the phone. It is amazing what phone cameras can do with the darkness as they enhance minimally lit things.
Οbjects acquire a different gravity when lit with a simple flashlight, like actors performing in the spotlight: garden chairs, roses, trees, the dog, the beach, everything. I decided to share a few of these pictures with you all.
The night sees things otherwise unseen. Thoughts evolve as we lie half awake in bed, acquiring different perspectives, magnified, often torturous; exaggerated!
With all this, a Cavafy poem came to mind, titled That They Come (the Mendelssohn translation):
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One candle is enough. Its faint light
is more fitting, will be more winsome
when come Love’s— when its Shadows come.
One candle is enough. Tonight the room
can’t have too much light. In reverie complete,
and in suggestion’s power and with that little light—
in that reverie: thus I will dream a vision
that there come Love’s— that its Shadows come.
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In deed, “one candle is enough” and dim light is “more winsome.” Phones, like candles back in the day, add faint light hues to things that would normally go unnoticed, simply remaining dark as they are to the plain eye. You can detect more through a phone’s lens.
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As the Earth turns, with its shadows renewed, the fall also brings Halloween! And with that, apple season begins!
When I started this newsletter, I thought I would not include food. But thinking of apples, I changed my mind. I come from an apple producing area, and back then we’d buy our apples in bulk, directly from producers. Those apples were delicious, nothing like today’s apples.
Aglaia liked the Fuji variety, and was relying on me to pick the fruit, as I was considered the apple specialist. Choosing apples on Kea is frustrating, they are rarely good. But recently one of the stores happened to bring a good batch and I was very happy and bought a lot.
In a previous letter, I wrote about kollyva—cooked wheat berries—being my favorite dessert for quite a while. Baked apples would also be on the table for a long time (as also quinces but we will get to that another time). Baking apples is easy, even I can do it… Below is Aglaia’s recipe:
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Baked apples
6-7 Servings
6-7 Fuji, or other firm-fleshed apples
4-5 dried figs
1 cup fig jam, or quince preserves
1/2 cup walnuts peeled
1 cup mixed sultanas and currants
2 pieces cinnamon stick, cut in half
½ -1 teaspoon freshly ground cardamom
½ teaspoon ground black pepper
1/2 – 1 teaspoon ground allspice
1 cup or more Commandaria, Mavrodaphni, Masala or other sweet wine, as needed
A good sprinkle of mishmish spice mix (optional)
Honey or maple syrup for drizzling
Plain halva for serving, optional
Heat the oven to 392F (200 C).
With an apple corer, remove the pits from the apples. With a peeler remove most of the skin in a spiral all around the fruit. Place in a pan that holds them snugly.
Cut the stem from the dried figs and quarter them. Place a piece of fig in the hole of each pitted apple, along with some of the jam, and squeeze in some currents and/of sultanas.
Spread the rest of the dried fruit, the jam, and the walnuts around the apples in the pan, and scatter the pieces of cinnamon. Sprinkle with the spices and douse the apples and all around them with the wine that should come to about half up the fruits.
Bake for about 1 hour, dousing every now and then the apples with the juices from the pan.
When they soften, turn off the heat and leave them in the oven for 15 minutes, keeping the oven door ajar.
Take out of the oven and pour again juices from the pan over the apples, then sprinkle generously with mishmish, if using. Drizzling the fruit with some honey or maple syrup, if you like the apples sweeter. Cover with foil and let cool completely before serving. They taste better the next day and their flavor improves the next 2-3 days. They keep at least ten days, covered in the refrigerator. Bring to room temperature before serving.
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I suggest accompanying your baked apples with crispy and slightly sweet Greek orange or almond biscotti if available; tahini halva will do too (a taste bomb combination but I’ll admit it…) as also mastic ice cream or Greek manouri cheese.
And to fulfill the experience, top it with a sweet wine. One of my favorites is Chrysogerakas, a sweet late-harvest white dessert wine by Ktima Kir-Yianni from northern Greece. And I like it cold.
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Thanks for this, Costas. Living in apple country as I do (in Maine), I will try Aglaia's recipe for baked apples--sounds delicious although where am I going to find a little slab of tahini halva to go with it?
Congratulations, Costas, on this beautiful and heartfelt post. The night photos are astonishing in what they reveal and your writing pulled me right in. Bravo!