Each year, at the autumn equinox, I serve this dish at our community’s annual harvest festival. It’s a magical time when throngs of masked mummers line the streets, reveling in song and drink before congregating
at the town’s center and lighting a bonfire that reaches so wildly high its embers cannot be distinguished from the stars. The dish itself is a celebration of the equinox, a time when the long days of summer wane into the growing darkness of autumn. It combines a remnant of summer—dried sweet cherries—with the bounty of autumn’s apples, greens, and onions. If you don’t have any hard cider, substitutesweet cider.
SERVES 4 TO 6
INGREDIENTS
- 2 tablespoons bacon fat
- 1 small red onion, thinly sliced
- 1 apple, peeled, cored, and thinly sliced
- 2 bunches Lacinato kale, stems removed and leaves coarsely chopped
- 1 cup dried sweet cherries
- ¼ cup hard cider
- 1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
INSTRUCTIONS
- Melt the bacon fat in a cast-iron skillet over medium heat.
- Toss the red onion into the hot fat and fry until fragrant and softened, about 3 minutes.
- Stir in the apple and fry until tender enough to pierce with a fork, about 4 minutes.
- Toss in the kale and cook until barely wilted. It should take only a minute.
- Stir the cherries and hard cider into the wilted kale and apple and simmer until the liquid is mostly evaporated, about 5 minutes.
- Stir in the apple cider vinegar and serve.
