Paul J Penton – Songwriter

“Just crumble please”, that’s what I used to ask for when the apple crumble would come out. It was in a pyrex dish so you could see those mushy stewed apples at the bottom. Across the top in a thick carpet was a topping of golden brown crumble. From my understanding it’s a simple thing; just flower and sugar and butter all rubbed in together, might even have made it in home economics 101 a couple of times. I’m thinking of the way that the butter starts to get all squidgy and pliant after you’ve kneaded it a couple of times and its particular smell and a workbench laced with flour and the making of scones and hot ovens and mittens and the fan of the oven. But on every third or forth Sunday at our house it would be apple crumble. 

Dutifully with some sort of silver implement mum would turn the Picasso pie into slices of pleasure , but for me only the top was skimmed off. Of course, occasionally there would be a sliver of apple and I’d carefully put it aside.  A big jug of custard, made from custard powder was the accompaniment, it wasn’t a heavy jug but sometimes the thickness of the custard made you think it should be. Congealed glugs of the stuff would pout from the lip in lumpy dollops, landing all over the moonscape that was the crumble. Scraped from the lid with a spoon before the moment of pleasure.  The hot spoon would momentarily rest on my tongue before it did a construction digger dump and the sweet sensors on my tongue would register a  9 point 99999 on the pleasure scale. Kerching, cash registers going off. The sandpapery  crumble dissolving into a fine paste to be swilled about, skiing down a  mountain of sweet pleasure sensations, before that mouthful is consumed the obsessive spoon starts chaperoning another combo slice of the yellow guardian and the golden hued prisoner into the dungeon of my mouth. The power! I am the King, but by mouthful three it starts to lose it’s shade and by four it’s all over…. expectations will rise for another scale of the summit in a few weeks. Next week it’s probably rice pudding…….