Making apple butter with apples from the local orchard is a highlight that comes with the Autumn foliage. The cramp between the thumb and forefinger is a pleasant reminder of each apple peeled, cored, and diced for the buttery apple goodness. Apple butter would only happen with everyone’s participation. I find myself in eighteen activities, all of which have nothing to do with preserves but everything to do with running a household. Seeing my family chase charlotte and help peel apples all at the same time is a beautiful comfort to the workings of the home.
Not only does this time of year bring apples, but the preparations for pecan pies allude my senses. When rolling out the dough and creating the perfect pie crust, Eva asks me if this is how Grammy did it when I was a little girl. I would smile and tell her yes.
I told Eva how Grammy always kept a dish towel thrown over her shoulder and a rolling pin in her hand. She would set her glass pie dishes on the kitchen counter and prepare the oven to warm. She would mix her ingredients for the dough and trace the recipe card with her finger covered in flour – as if she had never made the pie before. Eva’s eyes would dance as she begged me to tell her more.
I continued telling her how Grammy would press the fork into the dough so that it had a beautiful design around the finished edges. Then she would pour in her custard filling with its secret ingredient. Making for the perfect sweetness to satisfy any cold and dreary day.
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Over the years, mom got to where it was easier to buy a pie crust already made. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. It is a great blessing to have the “grab and go” luxury. But I have heard my mother say on several occasions, “I am going to get back to making my pie crusts – these ready-made crusts are just not the same.”
It was a Friday morning, and Eva was dressing up for school as an old lady for one hundred days of school. She came into the living room and said, “Mommy, help me dress up like Grammy.” So, I helped her tie her apron and grabbed a rolling pin for her to carry. I found some reading glasses and took the frames out. We pinned her hair up in a bun and sprayed her hair gray. Although Grammy never wears her hair in a bun, and her hair is NOT gray (at least she says it’s not), Eva looked just like an old lady and, in some aspects, like Grammy.
I called my mother later that day and said, “We have a new generation learning your homemade ways and the delight of the first bite of pecan pie. It’s in the crust.”
As we age, it’s easy to think a long way around is too time-consuming. Actually, I am thankful for many of our modern conveniences and inventions. I talk big, but I am grateful I do not have to wash cloth diapers and prepare the fire before skinning the chicken to cook supper. I also love the ability to capture photos in a split second and call Pizza Hut on a dime.
At the same time, I wonder whether we have created so many shortcuts that a rolling pin is forgotten and an apron is unnecessary. Although I am sure pioneers would love our frozen pot pies, I am not sure Kit Carson would appreciate the stolen exertion lost in the instant gratification.
No one can make a pecan pie like my mother. When the holiday season approaches and the dessert table is decorated, spiced tea and pecan pie beckon me to come. And when I take a bite of the light, flaky, warm custard crunch, I think this is mom’s best pie yet. But actually, it’s the years that have made them the sweetest.
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GREAT blog!! Makes me hungry. The pies not so bad is it 😊😊😊
Thanks for compliment . Maybe this year I’ll make the pie crust. 😱
It’s the best!!! ♥️