I’ve still got… ummm… at least fifteen pounds of apples. Fresh, juicy, orchard-ripe apples. We’d demolished the Labor Day apple crisp at the barbeque, so I decided to make another one.

I swear to you, I finished filling the dish and got it into the oven, and the bag of apples was just as full as it had been before I started. Freaky. If I were a better person, I’d see this as my opportunity to feed the starving masses. But I’m not, and so mostly I see it as me having way more apples than necessary.

The recipe I used tonight was a new variation, using crushed ginger snaps in lieu of flour in the topping. Oh. My. Good. Ness. I kept picking bits off the top while I let it cool for all of about thirty seconds. Then I dished myself a generous bowlful and realized–horror of horrors–I was out of vanilla ice cream.

Hot apple crisp. No vanilla ice cream. Jesus wept.

What’s that they say? Desperation is the mother of ingenuity? (Yes, I know that’s not it. Shut UP.) I grabbed the half-gallon of chocolate/vanilla patchwork and carefully dug out a few vanilla squares. What other choice did I have?

And then… bliss. Sweet bliss. Later, as I licked my bowl (hell yes I licked the bowl) I contemplated the possibility that I don’t even like apples. It’s possible. If I could make an entire pie plate of that crumbly, buttery, gingery topping without experiencing guilt and/or heart disease, that’s what I’d be doing. But you put that magic stuff on a mound of apples and–voila!–it’s practically healthy. I can work my way through a few apples for absolution.

Do you think the kids will believe me if I tell them it’s yucky? Oh, wait. Better yet! I’ll tell them it’s delicious and good for them. That’s perfect. They’ll never want any, then!