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Apples are yummy. Apples are yummy.It’s a refrain my two-year-old repeats up and down the rows of an orchard as I chase after him in an attempt to stave off the eating of any fruit that has clearly been sitting on the ground for several days (hey, kids want what they want). This scene has played out several times over the past month, ever since my wife decided to drive to a different farm every weekend.
Apple picking is one of those quintessentially fall things to do in the Northeast, like foliage tours and pushing disappointment in the New York Jets deep down where it can’t hurt you anymore. But having more than a peck ofHoney Crisp, Golden Delicious, and Mutsusconstantly clogging my counter and fridge, I have never before so appreciated my simple apple corer.
Thethin little number from Oxolooks like a pair of tiny spring-loaded tongs with vicious apple-core-ripping serrated blades on the ends. And it has become one of my most-used tools of late.
There are limits to how many apples a person can just bite into as snacks, so as peak apple season has invaded my kitchen, I have been hunting for recipes that use as many apples as possible all at once (the big winner so far has beenRose Levy Berenbaum’s apple walnut bundt cake). Plunging the tool into the center of the apple, then twisting and yanking out the seedy core is one of those simple and satisfying kitchen tasks. It gets your apples ready for slicing thin on a mandoline for apuffed apple pancake, or cutting into ready-to-eat slices for a toddler’s lunch—as we know,apples are yummy. It is also just so much easier and faster than messing with aparing knife.
This isn’t the first apple corer I’ve owned. I had one of those six-slice things with flimsy blades. It mangled lots of fruit and is useless if what you want are apple rings. I actually got rid of it and went back to the dark ages of coring with a knife. But picking up the Oxo has made what could have been an overwhelming apple season into an easy one. I still have way too many apples in the house, but hey, there’s no reasonapple piehas to wait forThanksgiving. And, given my current situation, it can’t and it won’t. I’ve been told a return to the orchard is imminent.
