Apple Fritters

During the Invitational Summer Institute that I taught, we began each day with a half hour of writing and sharing. The fellows took turns leading the circle, and one day Marlene (an art teacher) brought us fresh herbs picked from her garden -- basil, cilantro, lavender, and lemon thyme. When we rubbed them between our fingers, they gave off wonderful fragrances, and we used those smells to kick off our writing that morning. My unedited entry, inspired by a sprig of lemon thyme and an entry my sister-in-law had written about a month earlier on her blog, follows:

Mostly, lemons remind me of apple fritters on Sunday nights -- they became a Josenhans tradition over the years. Sliced apples, coated with a pancake-like batter and deep-fried in a 1/4-inch of Crisco. The apples get warm and soft, if sliced thin enough, and the batter bubbles up, becoming light and fluffy in texture.

The proper way to eat them is sprinkled with sugar and fresh lemon -- the sweet and the sour give the dough and apples just the right flavor. I can taste them even now.

They taste best right out of the pan, so mom would fry them up as we ate, only joining us at the table when the last three had been served. Tea was our drink of choice -- another bitter to offset the sweet, or complimented by a dash of lemon itself.

Just last month on my sister-in-law's blog, she described her and the children's first experience with apple fritters for dinner. My brother had been going on about apple fritters for quite some time, which is why she asked him to make them for everyone. The pictures of my niece and nephew captured their sheer joy and delight with the sweet and sour treat -- hands sticky with sugar and lemon raised in the air. And so apple fritters will live on for at least another generation in our family.

And I wonder if maybe someday I'll be serving apple fritters to children of my own.