The theme of the week is beauty, so I tried to come up with something that was aesthetically pleasing on several levels. I don’t think it is complicated, but it is difficult, and may take several tries to get right.
Be careful with the hot sugar–it is sort of like a cross between super glue and lava if it gets on your skin. This is not a task for multi-taskers.

 Ingredients:

• 2 cups sugar
• ½ cup of sliced, toasted pistachio nuts
• 1 Tbsp kosher salt
• Several (one per guest?) apples, peeled, cored, and sliced
• 1 Tbsp lemon juice
• 1 Tbsp butter
• Spice or flavorings to taste (cinnamon seems obvious, but cardamom is a possibility, as are cider, or rum or brandy, I suppose; I used a tablespoon of my apple butter)
• 1 cup heavy cream
• ½ tsp vanilla
• 1 tsp sugar or powdered sugar

Equipment:

• Clean stainless steel pan
• Several steel soup ladles
• Several forks
• baking sheets and baking parchment

Step 1, Prepare Ye the way: Get all the stuff you will need ready, especially the first three ingredients, and the equipment. Make sure you have a clean, clear work space, and the time to work un-interrupted. Take a deep breath.

Step 2, Heat that Sugar! Put the sugar in the steel pan, and put it over a medium to high heat. At first, it will do nothing, then it will smell hot, and then, the edges will start to melt and to turn slightly brown. The less you can stir this, the better, but it is also good to sort of swirl it around so that it doesn’t scorch or get to burnt around the edges. After 10, maybe 15 minutes, it will be a very thick brown syrup. Take it off the heat and let it cool slightly.

Step 3, Shape it: You will be using this sugar by dipping a fork in it and drizzling the syrup over things to form the nests. If you drizzle it over a wooden spoon dangled over a pan on the floor, it will form long, spider-web like strands. You could drizzle shapes in it on the parchment paper and let them cool and get hard.
What I am doing is making little nests by drizzling the sugar over ladles.
Coat the ladles with cooking spray, and maybe sprinkle a little bit of the nuts and the salt on them. Take a fork-full of the melted sugar and drizzle it in a pattern of your choosing on the back of the spoon. After each swipe, sprinkle a little more of the nuts on the nest.
Continue until you have a solid enough basket to put the desert into. Reheat the sugar mixture if it gets too thick.
Note: you will want these to cool before handling them, but it is best if they are still a little warm, because the pliability will make it easier to peel them off the ladles. If you are not using them immediately, store them in a dry, airtight container, maybe even with those little moisture absorbing vitamin packets–humidity makes these really sticky.

Step 4, Another path: After you have enough nests, sprinkle the remaining pistachio nuts and a little Kosher salt on a parchment sheet, then drizzle the remaining sugar mixture over them. this will give you little sheets of pistachio praline which you can use to decorate the dessert (or just to eat).

Step 5, Meanwhile, back at the apples: Fry the apples in the butter. Add whatever sweetener you like if the apples need it (or if you need it, which is really more likely), and whatever spices or flavorings you would like. I kept mine simple, but you could go whole chai or spiced rum punch.

Step 6, Whip it good: In a largish bowl (4 cups or more), combine the heavy (whipping) cream, the vanilla, and the sugar. Whip with a mixer until peaks form.

Step 7, Plate: On a small plate, set the nest, then fill it with the fried apples, and top it with the whipped cream. you can set a chunk of the praline on top of the cream, and, if you prefer this for presentation, either draw in caramel sauce on the plate, or dust the plate with pistachios.

Step 8, Serve it up: This Doctor isn’t telling you to feed anybody shortening bread; have some of these and share them with a dinner party.