Siri is slowly doing away with recipe books, how-to manuals and other tried and true handy references.
Our old backyard apple tree has been busy bearing fruit, and we’ve been busy harvesting.
Since our McIntosh apples are somewhat “vintage” I consulted my 1950s-era community cookbooks for old-fashioned recipes.
Apple dumplings, applesauce, baked whole apples, apple cobbler and others were printed in typewriter font on the yellowed spiral-bound pages.
They were submitted by Lutheran churchwomen with names like Bertha, Opal and Henrietta who used ingredients like lard and oleo.
I imagined these rosy-cheeked apron-clad farm ladies in their unair-conditioned, sweet-smelling kitchens rolling out dough and monitoring their wood-burning stoves.
These apple recipes had to be good.
But in the absence of lard and the patience for piecrusts, I eventually turned to my modern recipe source, Siri.
“Hey, Siri,” I summoned the iPhone on the kitchen counter. “I need a recipe for apple dessert.”
“OK,” she replied. “I found this on the web for ‘recipe for apple dessert.’”
And there, sure enough, was a long list of websites linking to apple recipes.
Siri is the modern housewife’s best friend.
Come to think of it, she’s popular with all wives, husbands and professionals of both genders for answers to questions about all topics in and outside of the kitchen.
For example, this summer Siri helped out when Chance encountered a skunk.
Poor thing.
His tail had been wagging rapidly, ears perked forward as he poked his nose into the end rows of a soybean field.
Suddenly the tail drooped, the ears flattened and the snout began pushing along the ground through the grass.
The smell hadn’t yet drifted my way, but all this could only mean one thing.
“What’s the best way to treat skunk spray on a dog?” I asked Siri.
She suggested a list of reputable products that could be found in most hardware or discount aisles. But it was 6 p.m. on Sunday.
“Hey, Siri. What’s a good home remedy for skunk spray?”
The first link took me to a basic mix of vinegar, baking soda and a squirt of Dawn dish soap. It worked.
But sometimes Siri offers too many options, and she’s too objective to suggest a best choice.
So my apple dessert recipe search dragged on and on.
Apple coffee cake? Apple upside-down cake? Apple cinnamon strudel? Cream cheese-frosted apple bars?
Which one? What to do?
I scrolled through the choices while the peeled and pared apples began browning on the edges.
Then I spotted the red Betty Crocker beginner cookbook that I received as a young bride decades ago.
It was a fraction of the size of my mother’s three-ring-bound Betty Crocker cookbook, but it had all the basics. A “Best of Betty,” if you will.
And there on page 122 was “Classic Apple Crisp” with only a handful of ingredients — all of which were in my pantry.
The moral of the story?
I’m not sure there is one, except that in cooking and in life, sometimes less is more.