Oliver is on a winter soccer team called the Spartans. They had their first match today as part of a tournament in Burlington. Oliver played on the defensive line and he was very strong, but the team lost and in the final minutes he seems to have broken a toe.
Back at home, while I used the last of the daylight to prepare the spot where I’ll be building a new chicken run, Erin made shrimp scampi as consolation meal for Oliver. After dinner, I grabbed a jar of my cherry pie filling and whipped up a cherry crisp. I followed the apple crisp recipe in Betty Crocker’s 40th Anniversary Edition cookbook—I think Erin’s mom gave this to me and Erin when we were married in 1996—and was intrigued by this note at the top of the instructions:
Apple Crisp is an American classic that uses our abundance of native apples in a luxurious-tasting, no-fuss dessert. During World War II when food rationing was in effect, this patriotic crisp was featured as “easy on shortening and sugar.”
When the cherry crisp came out of the oven, we took bowls of the deliciousness upstairs to finish watching The Six Triple Eight about the 855 members of the all-Black battalion of the US Women’s Army Corps that managed a backlog of 17 million items at the end of the war. I salute their skill and accomplishment, their pride and perseverance.
I’m under no illusions tonight: it’s been a pleasant Saturday for soccer and a peaceful evening for history and sweets, but there is a battle raging for fairness and equity.
© Anton Zuiker