The cider house rules

Mrs Walles came home yesterday bearing the sad news that that the state fair has indeed been cancelled.  So no funnel cake and freshly squeezed cider for me this year, either.  I'm not sure how this is going to affect our plans: Mrs Walles has family coming in specially and we have yet to see whether small-town Pennsylvania is still enough of a draw without the fair.  Mind you, there is at least one other bucolic attraction that we were planning to show them, some kind of autumnal festivity that I don't know much about.  I'm not sure about the details, but I hope there's cider involved.

Speaking of cider, I wouldn't want you to think I'd turned into an old lush.  That's just what they call apple juice here.  Well, some apple juice.  From what I can tell, Ned Flanders had it right.  Clear apple juice is apple juice, and the cloudy stuff is cider.  Unless it's hard cider, in which case it's the kind of cider I'm familiar with, complete with alcoholic content (or so I assume from talking to people, I haven't actually encountered any yet).  Soft cider (served hot or cold) is a fairly popular drink here in the fall autumn and it has just started appearing on the supermarket shelves.  The weather may be starting to cool but Americans cleverly compensate for this with a number of delicious traditional seasonal treats.  And who would I be to buck tradition?