False Fall Apple Butter

For when climate change makes heating the oven even in autumn too much.

The heat has seemed to follow us this summer. Getting out of Los Angeles for my husband’s summer vacation normally means a respite, but this year we found ourselves melting slouchily through a series of sunny days. So far, September has brought no relief. Even the few days of rain felt like a tropical storm. My mother-in-law is from Kerala, an Indian state on the edge of the tropical Malabar Coast. She tells me she likes this weather. It reminds her of her childhood. It’s like she’s back home.

It seems like the new norm will be a hot summer followed by a hot fall, with a warming winter on its heels. Los Angeles has long been accused of having no seasons. In the past, I’d say that wasn’t true. Spring brought wildflower blooms and gusty winds. Summer meant 72 and sunny beach days. And autumn’s blooming California goldenrod and cloudy mornings gave way to light winter rain. When I remember the autumn world from when I was young, I think of the smell of freshly baked bread, a fire in the fireplace, jumping in the puddles that dripped from the eaves of the roof. Cold outside (relatively speaking, of course) and wonderfully cozy and warm within.

Lately, I’ve been thinking about the many ways the world I’m giving my children is different, profoundly so, from the world that was given to me. On an individual level, we try to help, getting our clothes from the thrift store or local “buy nothing” groups, eating vegetarian food for supper every other night. I volunteer for my mom’s amazing food rescue nonprofit when I can. But I still want to travel, which means flight, which means emissions. I still want to celebrate my sweetheart’s birthday with oven fries and a ribeye steak.

Beyond that, I am all too aware of the famous fact that just 20 companies are responsible for one-third of all global carbon emissions, that so much of the change for the worse is happening at a scale that feels profoundly beyond my little family’s control. So much of what happens next is about reacting, rather than acting, trying to find new ways of marking the seasons in a world where the flattening effect of all that warming renders them the same.

All this to say that the great project of the past few weeks at our house has been looking for ways to make it feel like fall. My 3-year-old returned to his little cooperative part time preschool, and we’ve been talking about his plans for Halloween (he is going to dress up as a “rainbow gardener,” whatever that means), taking the train to pick apples in one of the little mountain towns, and the fact that there is a ski lift in Angeles National forest — maybe, for at least one day this winter, it will snow.

Cooking, though, has presented a challenge. I like to cook with the seasons, both because it’s wildly cheaper to buy what’s easy to grow and because it’s a lovely way of feeling the passing of time in your body. Summer means pasta with raw tomatoes from a friend’s garden; autumn delivers gnocchi in a creamy pumpkin sauce. But so much of what I want to eat isn’t practical to cook in this heat, losing its appeal entirely by the time the morning clouds vanish and the late summer weather kicks in during the afternoon. I still bake a loaf of bread every week, but I cook it in the evenings, long after everyone is asleep. The smell of freshly baked bread isn’t worth seeing my baby sweat like she’s in the sauna.

My solution has been autumnal breakfasts. Before leaving for school, the baby, toddler, and I share squash muffins fortified with red lentils and molasses and golden turmeric granola spiked with pumpkin seeds. But the biggest hit, and the one thing we’ve been able to make together without turning on the oven, is slow cooker apple butter.

It’s a concoction so basic I almost feel guilty giving you the recipe, but there’s no denying the magic of the results. You spend five minutes coring on-sale seasonal apples. Maybe you even went apple picking, if we’re really getting into the spirit of the thing. You enjoy a quiet day at home, reading library books and doing little crafts, making and remaking the same giant dinosaur floor puzzle as the air fills with the smell of autumn, apples and cinnamon turning everything nostalgic and sweet. At the end of the day, you are left with a delicious caramel-colored jar of apple butter that can be spooned onto everything from those unholy healthy muffins (my toddler) to whole milk yogurt bowls (me). Improbably, no matter how warm it is outside, your mornings will taste like fall.

False fall apple butter

Apples (as many as fit into your crock pot), cored and sliced

1 cinnamon stick

Splash apple cider vinegar

Method

Put your apples in the crock pot with the cinnamon stick and a splash of apple cider vinegar. Cover, and turn to low. Leave cooking all day, as the apple smell fills your house with nostalgic sweetness.

(Bonus apple cider vinegar recipe: cover your reserved apple cores with water, adding one tablespoon of sugar for every cup of water. Leave in a dark place. In about a month, you’ll have apple cider vinegar.)

Once your apple butter has reduced considerably and turned a shade of dark chestnut brown, remove from the heat and give a good stir until smooth. Store in a jar in your fridge and eat, dreaming of cooler times.

Emily Beyda’s writing has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Built, Refinery29, Smartmouth, Fodors, the Thrillist, the Austin Chronicle, and more. Her novel, “The Body Double,” was published in 2021.

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