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The tree was small, with gnarled limbs on which grayish-green patches of lichen had made its home. The apples, though growing plentifully, were small, some the size of large cherries. Someone should have thinned the fruit, but the tree had been neglected.
Apples filled the bowl as I picked them from the tree, a motley crew of misshapen fruit in various sizes, some with patches eaten away by yellow jackets. I didn’t hold out hope for making much from this harvest, especially since many revealed inner rot when I cut and peeled them later in the kitchen.
But I plugged away, bit by bit, till every usable scrap of apple was peeled, cleaned, and tossed in a pot. To my surprise, the yield nearly filled two pots with fruit ready to be cooked into applesauce.
Alchemy occurred with the addition of heat and just a little bit of water. The apples softened into a chunky sauce, to which the smallest touch of brown sugar was added. A light dusting of cinnamon followed.
The result was truly magical. A highly flavored, not-too-sweet, fresh-tasting, soft but chunky sauce had been formed from the humble fruit. My son said it was the best he’d ever tasted and my heart swelled with pride.
It wasn’t me, however, who deserved the credit; it was the pure taste of one of the best cooking apples on the planet, the Gravenstein. If you’ve never made sauce with them or baked them into a pie, it’s well worth seeking them out for your first experience.
This apple variety is native to Denmark, where it was discovered as a chance seedling in 1669. It was introduced to western North America in the early 1800s by Russian sea traders, who planted a tree at their Fort Ross, Calif., settlement.
Renowned botanist and agricultural pioneer Luther Burbank was particularly fond of the sweet-tart Gravenstein apple. Of it he said, “If the Gravenstein could be had throughout the year, no other apple need be grown.”
The U.S. Gravenstein apple crop is concentrated in western Sonoma County, specifically near the town of Sebastopol.
This amazing apple is a difficult commercial crop. They don’t store well, making them available only in season, and short stems and variable ripening times make harvesting and selling difficult.
Sadly, most commercial Gravenstein orchards have disappeared due to suburban sprawl, grape vineyards, and bad economic conditions. Few growers are left.
In 2005, Slow Food USA declared the Sebastopol Gravenstein apple a heritage food and included it in their Ark of Taste, an international catalog of heritage foods in danger of extinction.
I feel grateful whenever I see Gravensteins in a store or on a tree. It’s good to know some still exist, even if in smaller quantities than in the past when they were shipped to World War II troops in the form of dried apples and applesauce.
We are in the midst of apple season, and the Gravenstein is but one of more than 7,500 known cultivars of apples. Most are harvested between August and November.
Apples are divided into three groups: dessert or table apples, which are bred for eating; cooking apples, such as the Gravenstein, which are bred for baking, drying, and making into applesauce; and cider apples, which are typically too tart and astringent to eat fresh, but impart a rich flavor to cider.
Lake County is home to a small handful of commercial apple growers. Apples grown by the Seely family of Upper Lake are available now at farmers’ markets, as well as at their farm stand through November.
I spotted a couple of interesting dessert apples at their booth at the Lake County Farmers’ Finest market in Lakeport’s Library Park Wednesday: Ozark Gold, similar to the Golden Delicious, and Prime Red, a cross of Jonathan and Worchester apples. Both looked tempting, with bright colors and firm textures.
Farmer Haji Warf of Upper Lake’s Kalikai Farms offered netted bundles of petite green apples at the market. These old-fashioned apples are crisp, with a surprisingly sweet taste belied by the color of the skin.
The Library Park market has run its course as of last Wednesday, but the one at Steele Wines in Kelseyville on Saturday mornings will be in full swing through the end of this month. Both growers will likely continue to be there with apples in tow.
Apples are members of the large rose family. Wild ancestors of apples known today still grow in remote mountainous regions of central Asia, such as in southern Kazakhstan and surrounding countries.
Almaty, Kazakhstan’s capital and largest city, derives its name from the Kazak word for apple, “alma.”
I particularly enjoy apples in savory applications. My mother has developed a new favorite dish inspired by Alice Waters. Made with sweet potatoes, apples, and onions sautéed together in a skillet until the apples become caramelized, it’s absolutely delicious as an unusual side dish.
Another favorite of mine is sautéed apples and purple cabbage flavored with fennel or sage. White wine vinegar and currants or raisins add acidity and sweetness, respectively, for a balanced dish. As you can imagine, this is a nice accompaniment to pork or sausages.
Apples may be cored and stuffed with a bit of butter, brown sugar, and cinnamon and then baked until soft and sweet for a dessert reminiscent of apple pie, though a bit healthier. This was something that was often served in my otherwise dessert deprived childhood (and that’s not a complaint).
“An apple a day keeps the doctor away” is a phrase that’s said to have been coined in 19th century Wales, and it’s proven to be true to some extent. Research indicates that apples contribute to good health by reducing the risk of colon, prostrate and lung cancer.
They may also help with heart disease, weight loss, and controlling cholesterol. Compared to many other fruits and veggies, apples are relatively low in Vitamin C; however, they’re rich in other antioxidant compounds.
If an apple a day doesn’t keep the doctor away, it will at least delay him or her.
There are so many wonderful ways to use apples: in a rustic tart, for example, or baked into bread or added to butternut squash soup.
Today I’ve chosen something a little different to share, a salad by British Chef Jamie Oliver that features apples along with their elegant and recently-celebrated cousin, the pear.
The salad utilizes endive as its green. Endive, also known as chicory, has a bitter taste. It’s not sold in every supermarket, but with a bit of research it can be found. Relatives such as radicchio, escarole, or frisee (curly endive), impart a similar bitter taste and may be substituted. In a pinch, a mixture of Romaine lettuce and arugula will do.
While Oliver doesn’t include this in his recipe, I think a sprinkling of toasted Lake County walnuts would be a fantastic addition.
Enjoy!
Sweet pear and apple salad with bitter endive and a creamy blue cheese dressing
4 heads of endive (a mixture of red and white, if possible)
2 eating apples
2 pears
A handful of soft herbs (chervil, tarragon, parsley – use only one, or a mixture), torn or chopped
For the dressing:
2 ounces strong blue cheese
¼ cup crème fraiche (or plain yogurt or sour cream)
5 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, plus a little extra for drizzling
4 tablespoons cider vinegar
6 tablespoons water
Separate the endive leaves, wash and spin dry.
Core apples and slice them into matchsticks.
Core pears and slice them into eighths. (If under ripe, grill until lightly charred.)
Mix above ingredients in a large bowl, along with most of the herbs. (Reserve some herbs for garnish.)
Add dressing ingredients to a blender and process for about 15 seconds, until smooth.
Plate salad mixture and add blue cheese dressing. Finish with a drizzle of olive oil and herbs for garnish.
Makes four servings.
Recipe by Jamie Oliver and courtesy of Jamie at Home.
Esther Oertel, the “Veggie Girl,” is a culinary coach and educator and is passionate about local produce. Oertel teaches culinary classes at Chic Le Chef in Hidden Valley Lake, Calif., and The Kitchen Gallery in Lakeport, Calif., and gives private cooking lessons. She welcomes your questions and comments; e-mail her at
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NORTH COAST, Calif. – The five-week search for the man suspected of killing a Fort Bragg City Councilman and a land trust employee in August came to a deadly conclusion on Saturday.
Aaron James Bassler, 35, of Fort Bragg, who had eluded a massive manhunt since the Aug. 27 shooting of Councilman Jere Melo, was shot on Saturday by Sacramento County Sheriff's deputies taking part in the search, according to Mendocino County Sheriff's Capt. Kurt Smallcomb.
Smallcomb said Bassler was spotted as he walked down a logging road.
The Sacramento County team members subsequently shot and killed Bassler, Smallcomb said.
The search for Bassler – who was linked not just to Melo's fatal shooting but to the Aug. 11 murder of Mendocino Land Trust staffer Matthew Coleman – was the largest in Mendocino County history, according to Sheriff Tom Allman.
The search had intensified over the past week, after Bassler fired on a three-member team from the Alameda County Sheriff's Office, as Lake County News has reported.
The confrontation between Bassler and the three-member team occurred in an area near Northspur Road – located 14 miles east of Fort Bragg and 10 miles northwest of Willits – where a series of vacation cabin burglaries had been linked to Bassler, officials reported.
Bassler fired on the team on Thursday shortly before noon in a densely wooded and brushy area, appearing to have flanked the men as he did Melo weeks earlier. Allman said the men returned fire at Bassler, who was about 100 meters away.
He disappeared, only to reappear and open fire again. Allman said the Alameda County team returned a total of 10 shots before Bassler once again vanished into the woods that he has explored since he was a child.
A surveillance camera had captured an image of Bassler at one of the Northspur Road area cabins, holding a high-caliber assault rifle, which Allman released on Monday.
Bassler was believed to have taken a .22 caliber rifle and a 12-gauge shotgun during one of the burglaries.
On Wednesday a California Department of Justice criminalist confirmed that a fingerprint found at the scene of one of the burglaries was Bassler's.
The search has involved multiple state, local and federal agencies, including assistance from the Lake County Sheriff's Office.
Mendocino County Sheriff Tom Allman said at a Wednesday press conference that Lake County Sheriff Frank Rivero called him after hearing of Bassler's confrontation with the Alameda County team and pledged additional resources.
Lake County Sheriff's Capt. James Bauman reported on Friday that a team of seven Lake County Sheriff’s SWAT members, a sheriff’s K-9 team and two supervisors were deployed to Mendocino County on Thursday to join the search.
Allman had said that the search for Bassler would not conclude without a resolution.
The operation had stretched Mendocino County's resources, with Allman reporting that the search had cost nearly $300,000. It had been aided by donations of hotel rooms, food and supplies from community members and businesses.
It also took its toll on agency members like Smallcomb, who has been an active part of the search around the clock for more than a month.
On Saturday evening Smallcomb said he was in emotional shock in the wake of the day's developments.
E-mail Elizabeth Larson at
Curiosity is about to go to Mars. The car-sized rover, also known as the Mars Science Lab, is scheduled for launch in late November or early December 2011 from the Kennedy Space Center.
After an eight-month voyage to Mars, Curiosity will land at the foot of a 3 mile high mountain in a crater named “Gale.”
It sounds a little odd – a mountain in the middle of an impact crater. Wouldn't the impact have smashed it flat?
Some scientists believe the 96 mile wide crater filled in with sediments over time and relentless Martian winds carved a mountain in the center, where it now stands nearly three times higher than the Grand Canyon is deep.
Because of its history, this strangely sculpted mountain is the ideal place for Curiosity to conduct its mission of exploration into the Red Planet's past.
“This may be one of the thickest exposed sections of layered sedimentary rocks in the solar system,” said Joy Crisp, Mars Science Lab deputy project scientist from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. “The rock record preserved in those layers holds stories that are billions of years old – stories about whether, when, and for how long Mars might have been habitable.”
Today the Red Planet is a radiation-drenched, bitterly cold, bleak world. Enormous dust storms explode across the barren landscape and darken Martian skies for months at a time.
But data from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter suggest that Mars once hosted vast lakes and flowing rivers.
“Gale Crater and its mountain will tell this intriguing story,” said Matthew Golombek, Mars Exploration Program Landing Site Scientist from JPL. “The layers there chronicle Mars' environmental history.”
In the gentle slopes around the mountain, Curiosity will prospect for organic molecules, the chemical building blocks of life. Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has found an intriguing signature of clay near the bottom of the mountain and sulfate minerals a little higher up.
Both minerals are formed in the presence of water, which increases potential for life-friendly environments.
“All the types of aqueous minerals we've detected on Mars to date can be found in this one location,” explained Golombek.
Clay settles slowly in water and forms little platelets that conform around things, hardening over time and encasing them in “casts.” Clay could seal organics off from the outside environment much like it preserved dinosaur bones on Earth.
“If organics ever existed on Mars, they could be preserved in the clay,” Golombek said.
Even on planet Earth, teeming with life, finding billion year-old well-preserved organics is difficult. But Curiosity will find them if they're present in the samples it takes.
The rover is equipped with the most advanced suite of instruments for scientific studies ever sent to the Martian surface. When these are brought to bear on Gale crater’s mysteriously layered mountain, the odds of a discovery will be at an all-time high.
As seasoned travelers know, however, the journey is just as important as the destination. Curiosity can travel up to 150 meters per Mars day, but will stop often to gather and analyze samples.
“It could take several months to a year to reach the foot of the mountain, depending on how often the rover stops along the way,” said Golombek. “There will be plenty to examine before getting to the central mound.”
A high-resolution camera on the rover's mast will take pictures and movies of the scenery, taking Earthlings on an extraterrestrial sightseeing tour.
“As Curiosity climbs toward higher layers, you'll see spectacular valleys and canyons like those in the U.S. desert southwest,” Golombek said. “The walls on either side of the rover will rise over 100 feet. The sights alone will be worth the trip.”
Stay tuned for updates from the Red Planet.
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KELSEYVILLE, Calif. – Highway 29 was closed briefly on Friday evening because of a two-vehicle collision.
The crash was reported at about 6:20 p.m. on Highway 29 near Bottle Rock Road, according to the California Highway Patrol.
The CHP said a black Toyota pickup collided with a car. An off-duty Cal Fire paramedic called in the collision.
The car's driver suffered head trauma and was transported to an area trauma center via REACH air ambulance, according to reports from the scene.
The highway was closed to allow the helicopter to land and pick up the patient.
The CHP said the crash resulted in minor injuries.
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Desiree Kirby, 22, appeared as the day's first witness on Friday, the third day in the preliminary hearing for Orlando Lopez, Paul Braden and Kevin Stone.
The three men are charged with murder for the death of Kirby's 4-year-old son, Skyler Rapp, as well as attempted murder, mayhem, assault with a deadly weapon and special allegations for the late night shooting that wounded Kirby; her boyfriend, Ross Sparks; his younger brother, Andrew Sparks; and friends Ian Griffith and Joseph Armijo.
Along with Kirby, Andrew Sparks and Ian Griffith would both offer testimony during the Friday session in Judge Stephen Hedstrom's Clearlake courtroom.
While the three men have not been charged with gang membership, testimony thus far has suggested that Stone was a Sureño, and District Attorney Don Anderson brought a concern to the court at the end of the day that the men – who have been seated separately in the courtroom's jury box, wearing jail uniforms and unshackled – were flashing gang signals at audience members.
When Kirby made her way to the stand, the injuries she suffered on the night of June 18 were evident. She had long surgical scars on her right arm, and the injuries to her right leg – which, like her arm, had been riddled with shotgun pellets – caused her to walk slowly, with a pronounced limp.
During testimony, Anderson would ask her to explain the extent of her injuries, which included loss of feeling in some of the fingers on her right hand and the need to reconstruct her entire arm due to her elbow being destroyed.
She's not yet received physical therapy due to issues including metal plates that are starting to work out of her right arm. Kirby said she won't be able to lift her arm sideways, which will hamper her from doing basics like fixing her own hair.
On her right leg, she suffered an estimated 25 wounds. She said none of the shot exited, and doctors had to cut open her leg, pull back the skin and remove the shot and repair damage to her artery. After getting out of the hospital in July, she spent the first month in a wheelchair.
She needs three additional surgeries on her arm and one on her leg, can't walk like she used to and she tires easily. Her injuries and longterm physical damage have made it difficult to care for her 1-year-old daughter, and she can no longer work.
In just over an hour the tearful young woman would describe how, late on June 18, while friends and family were gathered in the yard of the apartment on Lakeshore Drive she shared with Sparks and her two small children, gunfire erupted from the area of a fence separating the apartment's yard from the residence of Curtis Eeds.
She said she went to school with Lopez but did not know him; she knew of Braden – who had grown up with her boyfriend – and didn't know Stone.
On June 9 Leonardo Lopez, Orlando Lopez's brother, allegedly hit Josh Gamble, Ross and Andrew Sparks' cousin, in the face with a pipe or bar during a fight outside the adult school graduation in Lower Lake.
Kirby said she found out about it afterward, and while visiting Walmart with Gamble's sister, Amanda, about a week later, Amanda Gamble pointed out to her Leonardo Lopez. Amanda Gamble and Leonardo Lopez had dated several years before.
“I walked up to him and I said, 'Did you hit my cousin in the face with a bar?' I repeated it a couple of times,” said Kirby.
She said she was getting angrier with him, and although he didn't respond angrily at first, they began to argue and he denied the assault. Kirby said she left Walmart, but no threats were made and she wasn't afraid as a result of the confrontation.
On June 18, she had the day off and the party with friends at the Lakeshore Drive apartment “was kind of a last minute thing.”
She received a phone call at about 6 p.m. from someone who identified himself at Orlando Lopez – testimony that resulted in frequent objections by the defense – with the subject “just screaming, threatening stuff,” and telling her that he was going to come and beat up her family.
Even then, though, she wasn't worried, figuring the person was just “talking crap.” And no one showed up during the evening, as she continued hanging out, and drinking beer and doing shots with friends.
That afternoon she had been with Ross Sparks when he received threatening text messages and calls which, in his testimony earlier in the week, he indicated were from Orlando Lopez. Sparks said the messages also had attempted to lure him away from his home for a fight, which he had resisted, instead challenging Lopez to come to his apartment and “fight like a man,” but not to bring weapons.
Kirby was speaking with Andrew Sparks when the gunshots started late that night. She saw the first muzzle flash out of the corner of her eye. Then she heard people screaming.
“I looked over and my son was on the ground,” she said, starting to cry.
She tried to get to Skyler but then she collapsed, and Ross Sparks tried to drag her toward the apartment.
Kirby said the last gunshot went right through her home, above the crib where her baby daughter was sleeping.
As she laid on the ground, she heard the last gunshots. Her daughter was safe in someone's arms.
A friend at the party was cradling Skyler's head on her lap. “And he was dead,” Kirby said.
Men recount shooting scene
Like Kirby, Andrew Sparks and Ian Griffith recounted the shooting incident for the court on Friday.
Andrew Sparks went to school with Orlando Lopez and Braden, but didn't know Stone.
He said his brother Ross Sparks called him over to his apartment on June 18 because he was having problems with Lopez.
While he was there that evening, Andrew Sparks recalled seeing in the group two other men – Curtis Eeds, who lived next door and made a brief appearance, and another man known as “Goofy.” Both Eeds and Goofy had come from Eeds' home through a hole in the fence between the Sparks and Eeds residences.
Andrew Sparks said he saw several muzzle flashes and heard an estimated 10 gunshots in rapid succession.
He saw Skyler – standing near the barbecue, roasting marshmallows for s'mores – get hit by gunfire and fall, and he also witnessed Kirby collapse after being shot.
In the melee he saw someone shooting over the fence and another subject shooting from the area of the fence with missing boards. He couldn't clearly see the shooter, who he said had short hair.
He was shot in the left leg and left arm while pulling Skyler behind a car. “I didn't know he was shot at first,” Sparks said of the child. He also tried to help Kirby get up.
Sparks, who said his left arm no longer works “all that well,” believes he was shot by two different weapons, with the gunshots sounding different to him. He said he believed the gun being fired over the fence was a shotgun.
The 19-year-old Griffith, who followed Sparks to the stand, said he went to school with Leonardo Lopez and knew Braden from drug court, but like Sparks didn't know Stone. He had been asked to go to Sparks' home because of concerns over Gamble's fight.
Griffith said he couldn't see the shooters due to the darkness, but he did see the first muzzle flash and heard as many as 14 shots.
He said he knew instantly that he was shot after feeling a warm sting in his leg. He was hit by two to three pellets, which didn't take him off his feet.
But he was hit again and fell as he was going into the apartment. As he was inside the home trying to check his wounds, Armijo fell and then Kirby went down.
Testimony in the case will resume on Wednesday, Oct. 5.
E-mail Elizabeth Larson at
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