Here is how things happen.
The other day there’s a bit of salt on the range hood. I wipe it off, open the cupboard door above it, wipe inside where there’s more salt, throw some over my shoulder then start moving things around, wiping all the while. (There’s only one place to go from here: eventually every item is taken out and the cupboard is thoroughly cleaned, followed by an inventory of what’s necessary, what isn’t.)
I notice we’re out of rolled oats.
So at the bulk food store I buy what I think is the right amount for the glass container they’re kept in but I buy too much. And because I don’t want to have a loose bag of oats in my well-arranged cupboard (this of course only ever matters when just tidied, the equivalent of ‘new car syndrome’), I decide to use the extra and make a crumble.
I’ve never made one before.
Peter is the crumble expert, and he has great recipe. No fail. Apple Blueberry.
No fail. I like that.
We have blueberries, local, purchased last year, flash-frozen and lovely but getting a little icy around the edges and in need of being eaten soon. And we have apples but the wrong kind. (Meaning they’re too delicious to shove into an oven.) So I go to our local apple monger and ask what’s the best variety for crumble and the lovely woman there says this: Cortland, Cortland, Cortland. With a couple of Spy thrown in for fun.
Spy being an old stand-by used by our grannies, she tells me.
Back home again I listen to CBC, peel apples and merrily make my first crumble and it turns out not too badly at all except for the part that renders it technically more a bumble than a crumble due to a mis-reading of the directions. (note to self: don’t put all the sugar into the fruit mixture; some goes into the topping… also, thaw the blueberries enough to lose the ice… ahem).
As for the range hood: blessedly salt free. For now.
today's forage 
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