Sticky Crab Apple Meringues

My shortbread experiment needs more work, so in the interim I thought I'd share another crab apple failure. The New York Times had a recipe for a walnut meringue with caramelized apple and still I had some quartered and seeded crab apples in the fridge that needed to go.
I also have fond memories of a nutty meringues my grandmother used to make with pecans -- although that may only have been when she was visiting us since Iowa has lots of black walnuts -- and the addition of herbs and alcohol made it seem like the sort of recipe I was meant to make.
But then a mild cold front came in, and my meringues got sticky. I tried rebaking them, which never looks pretty but can work texturally, but the net result just wasn't exciting. The caramel crabapples were still very tart and didn't meld with the nutty meringue at all... I think it was a pretty solid fail, but I blame myself, not the newspaper.
I'll encourage JG to post his opinion, since we don't always agree on these things.