Apple Strudel
Then, as the summer fruit disappeared, it was apple season. Always fresh from the farm, my dad would come home and make apple strudel. It was never one. He would make at least three of them, wrap them in tin foil and store them in the freezer for when company would come over or a special occasion. They were never opened for just any reason.

Several months ago, while my father was at St John’s Rehab, locked away from all of us, we were standing outside of the window at the back of the hospital and through the class I asked, “Is there anything you want to eat?” and he answered back, “apple strudel”, emphatically. This may seem like no big deal but this was the clearest thing my father had said in some time. So I decided to make it.

I had no recipe. I had only my memories. Memories of standing at the kitchen counter which my father aptly named the peninsula rather than the island because it was attached. He would stand on one side (near the oven) and I would stand (first on a chair and later on the ground) on the other side. I would wear one of the many aprons my grandmother had sewn. They were half aprons which never made sense to me since everything dropped on my shirt so why not cover that part too? Daddy would tie the apron that was meant for my waist around my chest. I would lift my arms up high and turn around and he would tie it under my arms so my clothes wouldn’t get messed.

He would peel the apples and I would marvel at how he could do it with such precision. As he peeled them in long snaky ribbons of sweet apple peel, I would gobble them up just as quickly. He would say, “NO WASTE!” and I felt that my eating was doing him a favour. Less mess meant mommy would let us do it again. He would slice them thinly, throw them in a bowl with raisins, cinnamon, white sugar, and brown sugar — more brown than white. Then he would put in a touch of brandy to add some flavour, or so he said. We would wash our hands throughout the process. He was a doctor after all and hand cleaning was not a new practice for me with Covid. We were always told to wash our hands all the time.

Once everything was in the bowl, with our clean hands, we would move the ingredients through our hands as he said this was the best way to mix it. Then came the phyllo dough. Paper thin sheets of white dough wrapped in wax paper. He would pull it out gently and place it down a few sheets at a time. A bowl of melted butter at the side with a baking brush ready to paint the dough one stroke at a time. You had to have a light touch so as not to rip the fragile sheets.
['Dr Debbie Donsky']
['Dementia', 'Daddy', 'Rosh Hashanah', 'Baking', 'Memories']