Once upon a time, in my small country in the Balkans, the arrival of apples marked the arrival of cold, rains, and winds. The apples would tell us that the winter was right around the corner, that for many months to come we would be eating beans and mushrooms, polenta and sauerkraut, roots and nuts. The apples would say that the food would be brown, that reds and yellows would come in spots—a contribution to the meal from preserves prepared lovingly throughout the summer, though a tiny contribution, as no household had a pantry large enough to accommodate a jar of color for every cold day. And as magnificent as this era of abundance is, I miss dearly the time of apples. Every year, come the apple season, I make this dish in the loving memory of the times gone by...

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