Freccycle SOS, see why, what happened 6WS

Nancy, a Freecycler from way back, posted an urgent invitation to come and help with her massive Golden Delicious apple tree which has thousands of apples ripening all at once, a positive tsunami of them.

So I went over with a bushel basket and in no time had about as many as I can use -- they're small, were not pruned out to reduce the crop, but are as their name implies, delicious -- and had plans to spend some time processing them for the freezer.  A winter's worth of crumbles and sauce.  And an invitation to go back and continue if I would like to.  I dug some iris divisions, the purple and white bearded heritage ones, that I'd promised her way back, because her mother used to grow them, so I finally made good and took them over in the same apple quest trip.

Before I cut them up, though (no peeling, way too small and fiddly) I used them as the model for the day's drawing, too tempting, a bushel basket full of apples, how often do I see that.

And after a couple of hours steady washing and  chopping and pushing about and labeling and bagging, while listening to a Peter Wimsey murder mystery, the freezer now has paid its way, since I couldn't have accepted them before having a freezer like this to house them.

That was yesterday's Freecycle bounty. And here's today's picked up from a different town, different direction, it's all go:

In line with my home-decor-without-money theme, I really like the idea of setting up a vignette like this, with the easel, which was the Freecycle item, holding up a charcoal drawing which I had standing on the floor for lack of a home on the wall.  

The two paintings on the wall are my locally dyed works, and one will be in a group show as of next week.  And the easel will house a rotating display of art that I fancy seeing better, or just giving it a turn. You see the Dollivers supervising the whole thing from the vantage point of their apartment in the bookcase.

This month's Bite Club is about Rozane Gold, her three ingredient approach to cooking, never used her books before, so I got the 123 book and plunged in.  Since our fearless leader, Diane, strongly suggested that instead of finding familiar themes to cook, we venture into things we haven't ever made.  

So I ventured totally, and used the current two redskin potatoes to make latkes!  yeah, I know, very familiar to some friends, never encountered by me.  Very very good, fun to make, too.  Quite time consuming but there was no hurry.  I made about half the recipe, I think, judging from the weight of my potatoes.  

I felt very historic doing this one.  See it in the background, cooking, while I show off the dessert

And while I was at it, I went back to an old favorite, to use up some prune plums, and made Marian Burros Plum Torte (Tart in some books), and liked it yet again. 

Dinner looked like this, end of a wildly active and successful day

 
 One of the latkes is destined for tomorrow's breakfast, just showing you the whole output here. Nice glass of merlot, of course.

Planning on sitting down this evening. After I have a walk, that is.