Almond Apple Crumb Cake and other seasonal treats (Patreon)

Dear ones,

As always my intentions are off from my delivery. This month, I’d planned a pile of things, which were canceled for a terrible cold that kept hanging on. Nearly four weeks, and the chest rattling cough is finally abating, and my energy is coming back. Such is the fate of a parent who was extra careful during three years of pandemic, and now has a child unmasked in preschool. He’s quickly recovering from all his colds, where I am just transitioning from a throat cold to a chest cold to a head cold and back again.

But I do have some things to share, in spite of my whinging.

One of the projects that I was working on was a collaboration with Alternative Motion Project (a local dance company) and my dear friend Dameun Strange. I re-recorded two old poems, as I wasn't going to be in a state to rehearse with Joanna any time soon, and Dameun mixed them into the score for the piece. Dameun and I had talked about these poems on one of our walks around Minnehaha Falls Park, because the collaboration was coming up and I wasn't sure what kind of work they were looking for and how much time I'd have if I needed to write new pieces or memorize them. The result were two new recordings, and one entire re-written poem. The performances are very different than when I originally did them back in my slam days, but I think the quiet of the recording allows for more dimension in my performance. I'll add them soon.

Today, you can enjoy a photo of the cake that my kiddo and I made this morning with apples brought by my mother from my aunt and uncle's farm in Montana. I used a recipe from this Canadian cookbook, with just regular all purpose flour instead of spelt (as that's what we had on hand), apples for pears, and almonds for hazelnuts. There's a dash of vanilla and almond extracts for dimension. I foresee this being a cake I come back to, as it was very easy. I'm trying to think of things I can make with all the apples she brought, and so far we've just eaten them raw (they're lovely crisp apples), made a off-the-cuff himmel und erde, and this cake.

In the coming days, I am queuing up some photos I took from a hike out at "the river house" on the St. Croix river this past weekend. Enjoy the autumn colors, and hopefully more time from me.