apple cranberry crisp with polenta streusel

It has been over a year since Isounded-off about my mild irritation with Michael Chirello–salient takeaways included that I found him fussy and often in excessive use of needlessly pretentious ingredients–and I’ve spent most of it feeling bad about it. I mean, he cooks honestly; he uses as good ingredients as he gets his hands on and he’s not afraid of adapting old stand-bys to make them more feasible for entertaining. These are all good things. I will not now nor ever abide throwing fistfuls of carefully cultivated gray salt into boiling pots of pasta water, but I’d rather pay attention to someone who cares enough about the nuance in flavor that they create than someone who acts like it doesn’t exist. Unfortunately, we’ve had another setback. A significant one, one so bad I have had to something that crushes my spirits and raises my shackles and throw the entire dish in the garbage. And the error was so easily avoidable, I just… can’t let it go. I hate throwing away food. This apple-cranberry crisp with polenta streusel is aggressively, inedibly and teeth-achingly sweet. When I saw the amount of sugar required, my eyebrow arched, but I remembered how much sugar is needed to make even a tart cranberry sauce and forged ahead with Chiarello’s instructions. Oh, how I wish I could hit the “do over” button now, because the flavor of this crisp is stupendous–lemon, orange, cinnamon and the slightest edge of pepper nestle against apples and cranberries in a dish that would be welcome at any winter dinner party. But I’d use a heck of a lot less sugar next time. I’ve been pondering for a few days now whether the sugar needs to be halved or just two-third-ed, and well, I can’t tell you with any authority because I haven’t remade it yet. When I do, I will halve it first, but I’d rather have too little sugar than any memory of too much. But if you’re nervous, and are willing to risk a little extra sweetness, try knocking down the sugar by just 1/3 of a cup. Whatever you do, I’d love it if you can report back to us. It will likely be weeks or months before I get to this again, and wouldn’t want others to miss out on your helpful input. It’s a good recipe, it just needs a major adjustment of one ingredient. One year ago:Soupe a l’Oignon [Onion Soup]