Apple Butter

Dear Polly: Do you have a recipe for apple butter? - Karen Dear Karen: Apple butter is delicious and lower in sugar than most jams and jellies. Wash and peel the apples and remove the cores. Place the apples in a heavy pot and cook until the fruit is soft. Add 1/2 cup water or apple juice to each cup of fruit to prevent burning. Stir frequently while cooking. When the fruit is soft, put it through a food mill, sieve or tomato press to produce a smooth puree. If desired, add 1/2 cup sugar for each cup fruit puree.

Today through Friday, it will take real willpower to pass by Vernetta Lane in Medford without succumbing to the scent of cooking apples. Apple butter made the old-fashioned way - in a black kettle over an open fire - is a tradition at the Medford Historical Society's annual apple festival at Kirby's Mill, but homemade apple butter has become so popular that historical society members have had to make several gallons beforehand at a member's home...

The Barns-Brinton House and the Chaddsford Winery have collaborated to make the apple the toast of a weekend festival. At the 18th-century Barns-Brinton House, visitors can learn the ABCs of apple butter cookery, said Susan Hauser, spokeswoman for the Chadds Ford Historical Society. The society maintains the house, which was once a tavern, and the John Chads House. Hauser said visitors would get to see apple butter being made. "Hopefully, if the weather is good, we will be making the apple butter outdoors," Hauser said.

Dear Polly: Do you have recipes for homemade cookie and biscuit mixes like the ones you buy in boxes at the store? I want the convenience of a mix but not the added preservatives, etc. - Andrea Dear Andrea: You don't really need a special recipe. Just take your favorite recipe, multiply it to make as many batches as you want mix for, blend all the dry ingredients in a bowl, then cut in the shortening until it forms coarse crumbs, just as you would when making pastry dough.

Dear Polly: I recently witnessed an excellent way to recycle worn oil-cloth or plastic tablecloths. Our friends used them upside down for dripcloths while painting. The cloth backing makes them slip-proof. - Diane Dear Diane: What makes this pointer a winner is using the cloths upside down, so the non-slip flannel backing is what you walk on. This is a huge improvement on plastic dripcloths or even using vinyl tablecloths right-side- up. Dear Polly: I always place my freshly baked cake or loaf of homemade bread on a plate dusted with powdered sugar or flour.

Until recently, Susan Wilson's family in Medford enjoyed teasing her about the Betty Crocker Homemaker Award she won at good old Reynolds High in Indiana in 1963. It had been was the only contest the fourth-grade teacher at the Haines School in Medford had ever won until Oct. 14, when she took first prize at the annual apple bake-off contest held by the Medford Historical Society at Kirby's Mill. Now the Betty Crocker honor may get more respect because of Wilson's success with her apple walnut cake with caramel sauce in the society's annual event to raise money for the restoration of the mill.

It's autumn once again. For many people, autumn means many different things. But there are a few mainstays of autumn that are embedded in nearly all New Jerseyans - football, raking leaves, wool sweaters and, of course, apples. Apples, apple cider, apple pie, all just a few of the harbingers of autumn. And for the 10th year in a row, the Medford Historical Society will celebrate the advent of the apple season with its annual Apple Festival, which will be held Saturday.

The quality of wine is often judged by the type of closure that keeps it in the bottle. Those sealed with screw tops tend to be inexpensive and unappreciated by wine aficionados. On the other hand, wines bottled with a cork often get an automatic sense of legitimacy - regardless of whether the respect is deserved. Bad wine should not be attributed simply to the presence of a screw top, according to a presentation at the recent annual convention of the American Chemical Society, held in Anaheim, Calif.

Imagine Grandma's kitchen, lightly dusted with flour fresh from the family mill. Cookies - oatmeal, maple-pecan and carob-chip - are in the oven, and 12- grain bread is baking. The aromas of roasting peanuts and simmering soup lurk on the olfactory fringes, and there is a hint of onion in the air. Now imagine Grandma cooking for 100,000. Put her kitchen on the banks of Dry Run in central Pennsylvania's hills, next to the winter wheat fields, and you've got Walnut Acres, an old-fashioned farm with new-found appeal.

About halfway through the 10th annual Apple Festival bake-off yesterday, one of the judges already suspected she knew which, among 37 entries, would be the winner. The pies, cakes, muffins and assorted pastries were set out on three tables, placed in a horseshoe on the bank of a creek in Medford Township. Two judges stood inside the horseshoe, two outside facing them, as all sampled one item, then the next. A finger-numbing wind was slicing through the crowds and over the tables.

Off Creamery Road on the first day of October, the march of the apples was stepping off at Solebury Orchards, not far from New Hope. One of the early birds, Honeycrisp, the finest eating apple of the crop, was almost finished picking, owner Brian Smith said, though there would be plenty at the orchard's farm stand through November, maybe beyond. It had company in the weathered, wooden crates lined up beside the cider mill - Galas and mild Empires with their frosty blush, and Cortlands, the first-press flavors in Solebury's extraordinary October cider, a bright blend of tangy, sweet and tart; autumn caught in a jug. In quick succession, others were ripening.

The chores of the 19th-century farmer, from harvesting corn to making soap, are authentically portrayed each year at the Apple Butter Frolic in Harleysville. Tomorrow, a few hundred volunteers will be found once again at Indian Creek Haven Farm, tending the fields and going about their domestic duties to give visitors a feel for everyday life 100 years ago. Walk through the fields and watch the corn being gathered and husked. A horse-powered treadmill will be used to operate a fodder cutter.

The Barns-Brinton House and the Chaddsford Winery have collaborated to make the apple the toast of a weekend festival. At the 18th-century Barns-Brinton House, visitors can learn the ABCs of apple butter cookery, said Susan Hauser, spokeswoman for the Chadds Ford Historical Society. The society maintains the house, which was once a tavern, and the John Chads House. Hauser said visitors would get to see apple butter being made. "Hopefully, if the weather is good, we will be making the apple butter outdoors," Hauser said.

Dear Polly: I recently witnessed an excellent way to recycle worn oil-cloth or plastic tablecloths. Our friends used them upside down for dripcloths while painting. The cloth backing makes them slip-proof. - Diane Dear Diane: What makes this pointer a winner is using the cloths upside down, so the non-slip flannel backing is what you walk on. This is a huge improvement on plastic dripcloths or even using vinyl tablecloths right-side- up. Dear Polly: I always place my freshly baked cake or loaf of homemade bread on a plate dusted with powdered sugar or flour.

Imagine Grandma's kitchen, lightly dusted with flour fresh from the family mill. Cookies - oatmeal, maple-pecan and carob-chip - are in the oven, and 12- grain bread is baking. The aromas of roasting peanuts and simmering soup lurk on the olfactory fringes, and there is a hint of onion in the air. Now imagine Grandma cooking for 100,000. Put her kitchen on the banks of Dry Run in central Pennsylvania's hills, next to the winter wheat fields, and you've got Walnut Acres, an old-fashioned farm with new-found appeal.

Until recently, Susan Wilson's family in Medford enjoyed teasing her about the Betty Crocker Homemaker Award she won at good old Reynolds High in Indiana in 1963. It had been was the only contest the fourth-grade teacher at the Haines School in Medford had ever won until Oct. 14, when she took first prize at the annual apple bake-off contest held by the Medford Historical Society at Kirby's Mill. Now the Betty Crocker honor may get more respect because of Wilson's success with her apple walnut cake with caramel sauce in the society's annual event to raise money for the restoration of the mill.

Dear Polly: Do you have recipes for homemade cookie and biscuit mixes like the ones you buy in boxes at the store? I want the convenience of a mix but not the added preservatives, etc. - Andrea Dear Andrea: You don't really need a special recipe. Just take your favorite recipe, multiply it to make as many batches as you want mix for, blend all the dry ingredients in a bowl, then cut in the shortening until it forms coarse crumbs, just as you would when making pastry dough.

About halfway through the 10th annual Apple Festival bake-off yesterday, one of the judges already suspected she knew which, among 37 entries, would be the winner. The pies, cakes, muffins and assorted pastries were set out on three tables, placed in a horseshoe on the bank of a creek in Medford Township. Two judges stood inside the horseshoe, two outside facing them, as all sampled one item, then the next. A finger-numbing wind was slicing through the crowds and over the tables.

It's autumn once again. For many people, autumn means many different things. But there are a few mainstays of autumn that are embedded in nearly all New Jerseyans - football, raking leaves, wool sweaters and, of course, apples. Apples, apple cider, apple pie, all just a few of the harbingers of autumn. And for the 10th year in a row, the Medford Historical Society will celebrate the advent of the apple season with its annual Apple Festival, which will be held Saturday.

Today through Friday, it will take real willpower to pass by Vernetta Lane in Medford without succumbing to the scent of cooking apples. Apple butter made the old-fashioned way - in a black kettle over an open fire - is a tradition at the Medford Historical Society's annual apple festival at Kirby's Mill, but homemade apple butter has become so popular that historical society members have had to make several gallons beforehand at a member's home...