Here in the Pacific Northwest, we're at the beginning of the cresting apple wave.  Early varieties have already ripened, and by the end of the month, neighborhoods will be filled with trees surrounded by dropped and rotting fruit, their owners pretending not to notice.  

I remember one year my father was overjoyed when he told me what happened to his apples.  He was working in the yard one afternoon when a car stopped and hailed him from the street.  The driver had a pony farm, he explained, and would it be alright if they took a few of his apples? 

"Hang on a minute," my father said, trotting into the house.  He returned with an ENTIRE BOX of big black plastic yard waste bags.

The property where I live has three apple trees, carefully chosen to ripen in sequence.  This is a pretty clever trick, but it means three to four months of continually ripening apples ever year.  And let me tell you, it gets to be quite a challenge!  I have to admit I can no longer stand even the thought of applesauce, after my foolish overindulgence the first year I lived here.  Shudder.

Fortunately, there are plenty of options aside from applesauce and that old standby, apple pie.  (But if you would like to make an apple pie, try making your own crust from scratch!  It's kinda fun once you get the hang of it, and it really does taste better than store bought crust.)  Here's a rundown of just a few of your apple related options:

Apple Dumplings - take a whole apple, core it, fill it with delicious spices and stuffing, then wrap it in pastry dough and bake until tender.  That's the basis of the apple dumpling, and you can go either upscale (homemade flaky pastry shell) or low budget (Pillsbury biscuit dough and Mountain Dew).

Apple Crisp - this is one of my favorites, not least because it has that air of healthfulness.  After all, it's mostly oatmeal - like a granola bar - and oatmeal granola bars are healthy, right?!  Okay, the ton of butter and brown sugar may undercut that healthy air.  But let me have my illusions.  

Apple Cobbler - this is what's known as a "spoon pie."  Basically you put apple pie filling into a 9 x 13 baking dish, then drop in lumps of batter or biscuit dough, depending on your preference.  I once read that cobbler gets its name from the way the dough looks like cobblestones - I'm not sure about that, but it can help you remember which is which.

Apple Buckle - this is like a crisp, but maybe not as sweet.  Or maybe it's the same thing as a crisp.  I checked a lot of sources and compared a lot of recipes, and they look pretty much the same to me.  Help?

Apple Brown Betty - this is a pudding in the traditional English sense (i.e. not in the Americanized, Jello Pudding sense).  Apples and spices are layered or jumbled up with buttered bread crumbs and chunks, and the whole shebang is baked.

Apple Clafoutis - I swear I had never heard the word "clafoutis" until this year, but now I see it everywhere I turn.  This is supposedly something halfway between a cake and a custard.  Several of my friends have made clafoutis (clafoutisuses?) this year and swear they are delicious.  I'm not a big custard fan, personally, but I wanted to include it in order to be suitably cutting edge.