Offices and Orchards (A New Adult Sweet Romance)

Chapter 28

Autumn had found a listing for a nearby apple orchard not far from Harvest Hills, but when she got there, she found that the picking season had finished. That came as a disappointment to her and she was surprised to realise she really felt that walking amongst the apple trees and doing some picking would have been a nice thing to do. Instead she did a bit of exploring back in town.
She had been in Harvest Hills for three months, there was only a month left in the internship and she had barely seen the city. Harvest Hills was a typical New England town, located right on Lake Golden, so called because of the color it turned during perfect sunsets. It was known for its lakeside park and a huge fountain in the middle of the lake which was turned on during the summer months. The lakefront was always packed with people out for walks, runs, rollerblades, bike rides or just to relax and enjoy the scenery. In the summer, South Beach was a popular swimming spot, and Golden Boats opened their doors for people to rent canoes, kayaks and rowboats. They even had a couple of swan-shaped pedal boats which seemed to be in use constantly. She had seen a little bit of all of that at the beginning of her internship, during orientation.
Because much of the city was built along the lake, there were two main downtown sections: one was the central business district as it was known, which basically contained the corporate block of the city including the skyscrapers where she worked- butit was a stretch to call them skyscrapers, as most of them only reached six stories. Even the most prominent building in the city was only twelve stories high, but noticeable nonetheless amongst Harvest Hill's small skyline.
A few blocks down along the lake, and one entered a different era. The lakefront area of the Village was known as the Green. During spring, the cherry blossoms came out, during fall, the maples running along the lakefront pathway turned to vibrant reds and yellows, and at Christmastime, the gazebo right in the middle of the green was lit up beautifully, Autumn had heard. That was where she had run into Harvey,
She walked a little ways along the lakefront and crossed over the street in front of a box-shaped two-storied house set back from the road on a large lot. It had seven paneled double-hung windows, a moderately pitched shingled roof, with the front door placed slightly right of the center. It was painted a pale yellow with white window and door frames.
"This is one of the oldest houses in the area! It goes back to the late 18th century." She overheard a tour guide telling visitors. "Apparently, there have been a lot of historically important visitors. This one is unusual because houses of this period were symmetrical and this one has its door off to one side. Unfortunately it's closed until Christmas, when they decorate the inside and outside in vintage lights."
In order to stay busy and distracted, she went to a grocery store. Her cupboards were quite bare from being away for the week, so she was due for a shop anyway, but this time, after doing her normal shop, she did another lap of the store, with an extra stop in one of the aisles she would normally have avoided like the plague: the baking aisle. She picked up some flour, several different kinds of sugar, extra milk and an extra carton of eggs, baking powder, baking soda, spices, a muffin pan, vanilla essence and all kinds of other stuff. She went straight home, popped on the Hallmark Channel to watch a fall-themed romance movie, and opened the apple blog on her laptop, which she had noticed the night before had some recipes on it. She was so excited to try her hand at some apple baking and to have a night in, on her own: plus she needed to do something with the huge amount of apples sitting in sacs on her balcony after all that she had nearly forgotten. Maybe she'd turn up with a tray of apple muffins on Monday for the break room. Wouldn't Amber be impressed?
Apple Recipes
In honor of the new picking season, I thought I would dig an apple recipe out of the original 1977 (hand written) Oakwood Cookbook I have sitting on my bookshelf. The recipe does not go so far as to recommend varieties of apples to use, but I would venture to guess that apples that pair well with cheese, such as Haralson, would do well in this recipe. In general I would go with apples that are not too sweet, but have good flavor. An assortment of varieties would probably be ideal.
APPLE-CHEDDAR STRUDEL
Ingredients
6 medium cooking apples
1/4 lb. (1 stick) butter
1 cup grated cheddar cheese
1 tsp. cinnamon
dash of salt
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
rind and juice from 1 lemon
1 cup bread crumbs (fine)
10 strudel leaves
1/2 cup honey 1/2 cup wheat germ
optional: a handful of raisins