The Big Reveal (featuring Individual Apple Ginger Crumbles)

The optician’s assistant had neither a shape nor a style that intimidated me.

This is important only because, as a 54-year-old woman on a vanity-driven makeover mission, I would have left the office if the technician had been gorgeous. It would have been too much for my frail psyche.

A tiny fire inside of me had been lit in December when I cooked almost every single day of the month for parties big and small. My hips screamed in pain, my right knee decided it could only climb and not descend stairs, and the sunken spaces around my eyes darkened. These are predictable circumstances for someone my age working as physically hard as I do and I felt proud of my pain, defined by it. And, for maybe the first time in my life, I felt “successful” enough in mind, body, spirit, and bank balance to splurge on some self-care. This was a puzzle for me because I’m cheap, self-loathing, and socially phobic. Self-care most often takes the form of food for me. I have always depended on the kindness of dessert.

But here I was with the self-inflicted challenge of receiving pleasure and I decided to book a massage. I’m not great with strangers touching me, even ones I’ve given 100% consent to by hiring them to touch me. While it was lovely to have an aesthetician smear salve on the cinderblocks formerly known as my shoulders, my practical soul craved some self-care that would last more than an hour. I wanted to put money into something that would create a new me. I wanted people to see that I had changed.

“These are going to be so awesome,” the optometrist technician said as she gestured for me to sit in the chair across from her. On the desk between us lay boxes of contact lenses and a magnifying vanity mirror aimed at my big face.

“Have you ever worn contacts before?” The tech’s brown hair was straight and bobbed, tucked behind her ears. Her loose-fitting beige maxi dress looked comfortable, and again: non-threatening.

“I tried colored lenses for a little while in my 20’s,” I said, intentionally not highlighting how long ago my 20’s were.

“Awesome.”

“I’m not squeamish about touching eyeballs.” It was a creepy-sounding admission I thought would make me seem brave. “My eyeballs, I mean.”

“Awesome.” She was not afraid.

The tech quickly led me through the removal of the lens from the case, placing it on the pad of my right index finger, and the opening of the skin around my eye to lay the lens onto the globe. I couldn’t do it, couldn’t do it, couldn’t do it, did it.

“Awesome!” The tech was looking anxiously out the window. “Now the doctor would like to see you. You look awesome.” I wish I was making up the number of times she used that word.

The doctor led me into the exam room where I shakily explained that my new vision felt unsafely blurry. She pulled the vision chart down and asked me to read aloud the lowest line that was clear, and I responded “E” (the top line, which was not unblurry.)

“It’ll clear up soon,” she said, refurling the chart. “You have an astigmatism which means that your vision with contacts will never be perfect, and also your brain has to adjust to the new lenses. Thanks so much, Alison. Set up a follow-up appointment and have a great day!”

I stumbled out into the blurry afternoon, eyes bright red from the painfully thick lenses being inserted repeatedly and then removed, belly bloated from a late-day snack, hair brushed into a style that had transformed into a solid red helmet.

It’s a cold, harsh reality when you realize you aren’t going to get the remove your clunky glasses and shake out your hair to unveil a new, perfect, ageless you moment. What was I thinking?

What I was thinking was that my glasses had become a barrier or a gimmick and that, at least back in December when I felt triumphant in my accomplishments, I wanted people to really see ME. Without artifice. Without façade. But then, as has happened every single late winter/ early spring of my career, the new year brought such a paucity of work that I returned to my insecure/ hide-from-everything persona. I don’t want to define myself by my career, but I am never happier than when I am cooking for people. I was desperate to recreate the confidence I have when I’m working. 

Disappointed, but not ready to let it go, I went back to the optician, and then back again, trying thinner and thinner contacts to no avail. An astigmatism is a defect in the spherical curvature of your eyeball. As far as I can tell, my eyeballs are more like eyecubes because the lenses just don’t work. I can see pretty well, but nothing like the clarity of my good ol’ clunky glasses.

I have worn the contacts to gigs and social gatherings and on TV and the response has been nothing. Zippo. No one even noticed. So there you go… no biggie. I’ll keep wearing my glasses and find another way to practice self-care.

Hey, I know… I’ll make another dessert…

(you’ll see me sans glasses making these crumbles on TV at the bottom of the recipe)

Individual Apple Ginger Crumbles

Makes 4 crumbles in ½ cup ramekins

Ingredients

For the apple filling:

• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 4 apples, peeled and sliced into ½ inch pieces
• 1/3 cup brown sugar
• 2 tablespoons candied ginger, cut into ¼ inch pieces
• 2 teaspoons cornstarch
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• ½ teaspoon ground ginger
• ½ teaspoon cinnamon

For the crumble:

• 4 tablespoons butter, melted and then cooled to room temperature
• 2 tablespoons brown sugar
• 1 tablespoon white sugar
• 1/3 cup chopped pecans
• 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/8 teaspoon cloves

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.
2. In a large saute pan, melt the butter until the bubbles have subsided. Add the apples, sugar, and candied ginger. Let bubble for 30 seconds and then add the cornstarch, salt, ground ginger, and cinnamon. Cook on medium heat for 7 minutes, stirring occasionally. The apples will soften but not become mushy. This is important because they will cook more.
3. Toss the brown sugar, sugar, pecans, and flour with the salt, ginger, cinnamon and cloves. Stir in the melted butter and mash to form a crumbly mass that kind of holds together when you smush it and then falls apart in clumps when you release pressure. You want to make sure that there isn’t a lot of dry flour so mash it until it’s all a little damp.
4. Set the 4 ramekins on a sheet pan. Scoop the cooked apple filling from the saute pan into the 4 ramekins. The filling will come up to the top, if not heaping over slightly. This is ok. Pat the crumble topping onto the apples and then place them into the preheated oven and bake for 30 minutes. They will bubble and possibly run over the sides a bit which is why you cook them on a sheet pan.
5. Enjoy with ice cream, whipped cream, or on their own.