What is autumn without fresh from the orchard apples? When summer is officially over and the weather cools off, the call of crunchy tart apples drifts down from the mountains and beckons city dwellers to enjoy the freshest of fruit.
You may recall last year’s Kosher Road Trip to Julian, a small mining town three hours away which remains the premier spot for autumn apples. But there does happen to be a gathering of orchards closer to the Los Angeles area. Oak Glen, just down the 10 E. Freeway, takes half the time to reach (not more than an hour and a half) and, like Julian, offers a wonderful variety of apples.
Apples require a certain crispy climate in order to thrive, and the mystery of Oak Glen is how a place surrounded by desert and not that high up in the hills could have such a different climate. On the Sunday we went, recently, a dark grey cloud was looming over the tops of the hills and, as we began a walk on the Los Rios Wildlands Conservancy trail, rain burst from one section of the sky and poured down on us. Yet the sun was shining and the sky was blue most everywhere we looked. The trail looked promising, though, so we hope to continue on it another day.
Meanwhile, down the road just a bit is the Oak Glen School House Museum, a tiny school with one classroom built in 1927 for the handful of children in Oak Glen. This charming stone building, surrounded by trees and grass (and sometimes bears that wander through) was in use until 1965, and apparently had only one teacher for all the grammar school grade levels of the children in attendance. The volunteer museum guide showed us around and shared some cute stories passed down by local families of children sneaking out of the detention room, or hiding the sauerkraut, which sometimes appeared in the school hot lunch, so they wouldn’t have to eat it. The most interesting artifacts to me were the “Rules for Teachers” posted on the walls. Prior to building the stone school, there was a little wooden school built in 1888 to service the community, and some of the rules posted date back to 1872. Some of the requirements for the one room schoolteacher read: “Teachers each day will fill lamps, clean chimneys. Each teacher will bring a bucket of water and a scuttle of coal for the day’s session. Women are forbidden to wear skirts slit to expose the ankles, men cannot have shirt sleeves ‘unlinked and rolled.’” Women teachers were also warned, “not to loiter downtown in ice cream stores” among other things. Perhaps even more eye opening is a copy of the 1899-1901 Eighth grade grammar school examination which asks students questions in physiology, geography, and several other subjects including the requests to: “Make a diagram of the stomach. Locate therein the openings into the stomach, and name them,” and “Name the countries of South America with the capital cities,” and “A note, face $250, interest 1 per cent, per month dated Nov. 1, 1898, due Sept. 10, 1899. Find bank discount on March 4, 1899, at 8 per cent per annum.” Makes you think.
The museum guide showed us the ground breaking indoor toilet with a rope to pull and flush, then rang the school bell for us as we left (and that’s a real bell, not the electronic timed ring schools have now.)
Back over at Los Rios, a small band was playing folk music as we checked out what apples were available in the store. Surprisingly, we didn’t encounter any honey, the natural companion to apples. In Julian there is an array of honeys which are naturally flavored by the flowers the bees collect pollen from. No local honey here, but there were some red delicious apples and very aromatic pears for sale. We then headed over to Snowline Orchards, which I had found in the past to be an excellent source for apples in terms of variety and quality. Even though we had come early in the season and not all the varieties were yet ready, Snowline did not disappoint. We gathered up bags of braeburn, macintosh, gravenstein, lura red, Ozark gold—the latter two were recommended to me for baking—and then we headed home.
So far I’ve baked two apple pies with streusel topping, a pear crisp, and some apple muffins. The macintosh are for eating straight and are crunchy and tart the way I remember from apple picking in Massachusetts.
Apple season is brief and can vary slightly depending on the weather, but when you get that vague sense that autumn is in the air, the apples are at their best. So whether it’s Julian or Oak Glen, please go and enjoy some California apples. You can even pick your own.
Notes:
The simplest directions to Oak Glen: take 10 E. to Oak Glen Rd. exit, drive into the hills
General information: www.oakglen.net
Snowline Orchards: 39400 Oak Glen Road Yucaipa, CA 92399, (909) 797-3415 snow-line.com, apples about $7 per big bag (call for availability)
Oak Glen School House Museum, 11911 S Oak Glen Rd., phone: 909-797-1691, open Sunday (except in Dec. or rainy days), admission free (donations welcome)
The Wildlands Conservancy at Los Rios Rancho, 39611 Oak Glen Rd., open Sunday 9am-4:30pm, admission free.