Into the Woods

I started the abbey’s small orchard seven years ago with small, bare-root trees, all of them old Southern heirloom varieties from Century Farm Orchards. Lots of grief and patience are involved in getting a new orchard to the productive stage. I’ve had a few apples in previous years, but this year was the first year I’ve had enough to make the orchard’s first apple pie. I took some portraits of the apples before I picked them and put them in the pie. The pie is totally from scratch and largely followed Irma Rombauer’s “Apple Pie I” recipe from the 1943 wartime edition of “Joy of Cooking.”