Three hours is all it takes to travel from our sandy seashore to the top of Carter Mountain outside Charlottesville, Virginia but what a change in scenery and pace, folks just zipping around those mountain curves like the blazes. ( Me, I just drive along at a good pace but not trying to set any records either. ) It’s really beautiful on top of Carter Mountain this time of year, off in the distance the Blue Ridge peaks look very blue. Close up, the mountain foliage is almost past its peak whereas back on the Eastern Shore, a lot of the trees are just slowly beginning to turn.
When my kids were small they loved cider and a little song called Sipping Cider Through A Straw. Now that they’re adults they still love sipping cider and Carter Mountain Orchard is an excellent place to do just that. The week-end before Halloween is a busy time at the orchard, it seemed like their winding mountain road was bumper to bumper, both going up and coming down, cars chuck full of pumpkins, apples and apple cider. But nobody was impatient or honking, they were just enjoying the crisp fall air permeated by the sweet smell of apple pies baking in the orchard’s little bakery. Actually, we like Carter’s apple cider donuts just as much as their apple pie– if you’ve never had one, let me say that it’s hard to beat a fresh cider donut ( or 2 ) paired with a cup of hot spiced cider as an autumn treat.
Anyway, the plan was to meet up with our son and crew to have lunch atop the mountain and then pick apples. BBQ sandwiches and real french fries ( not frozen mushy things so often served) washed down with fresh-pressed apple cider, a tasty lunch for sure, just close the eyes to the calories ! But the rest of the plan was to work off some of those calories by picking apples. After the kids enjoyed a ride around the orchard on a tractor-pulled hay-wagon, we all set off for the U-Pick section of Fugi apples. In my opinion, Fugi’s are a perfect apple for both eating and cooking. Picking was the easy part– toting about 100 pounds of apples down the mountain while corralling 3 little running, laughing grandkids was a challenge but we managed it. By then the time had finally come to pick the Great Pumpkin. After much searching, evaluating and advocating for a particular favorite, the kids at last found a pumpkin upon which they could all agree, thank Heavens for that !
Then they were off to make a couple other stops, leaving my husband and I to settle down and relax at one of the picnic tables to enjoy the long view out to the Blue Ridge and to have a wee bit of dessert….. an apple cider donut and a cup of cider, of course. We wrapped up the afternoon by selecting a few other varieties from the pre-picked bins, some Jonathans, a few Granny Smith, some McIntosh, some Staymans, etc. . When cooked together into an applesauce, the flavor of a mixture of different varieties of tart-sweet apples like these is incomparable. ( Why the only so- called applesauce you can buy in grocery stores is some thin, runny, no- texture, flavorless stuff which has no relationship to what real applesauce actually is if you make it at home, I truly can not understand. Really, how hard should it be to make a decent, delicious commercial applesauce ? Some company should make that their calling– bringing real applesauce to the market ! )
Last item on our Carter Mountain Orchard to-do list was to get a bushel of Pink Lady apples. Having had our fill of apple picking for the day, we opted for a pre-picked bushel of these beautiful apples, each one sporting a wide pink blush. For staying power in a refrigerator, a Pink Lady is hard to beat. They are a wonderful all- around apple for eating, Waldorf salads, frying, etc., etc. So, loaded up with apples, apple cider, apple cider donuts and jars of apple butter, we were ready to say goodby to Carter Mountain Orchard ( www.cartermountainorchard.com ) until next year’s apple trek from Virginia’s Eastern Shore to Charlottesville, Virginia.
