Apple-licious Memories

I love the fall season for many reasons, but in this particular case it's because there are tons of apples available. You can go apple picking and then make all sorts of apple-licious things! Now, I can't say that I myself have gone apple picking this fall, but I have at least thought about it! And I ended up receiving a bag full of apples that someone else had the joy of picking.

So I had these apples and wasn't quite sure what I was going to do with them. But then I realized that I had a hankering for some baked apples. This is probably because a good friend of mine had made me baked apples a few weeks before and I wanted to try my hand at it! And that's what I did.

It was my night to make dinner and it was a meal that shouldn't have taken too terribly long, but because I decided to try this new dish, it added a bit of time. So to begin I needed to peel and core the apples. I didn't think too much of this task until I started coring the apples. I cheated a bit and cut them in half first, but when I was cutting the cores out of the halves I had several flashbacks from my childhood.

From all the times I was able to help my grandparents make applesauce and apple butter in their house on Green Street. They had several apple trees out back so we would pick them and then prepare the apples and then cook them down into applesauce. I loved eating the freshly made, lightly spiced applesauce while it was still warm.

I also remembered helping my great aunt and uncle make applesauce. And it was from them that I learned the proper way to cut into an apple to get out the core and not be wasteful of the rest of the apple. I can remember watching Uncle Floyd's giant hands using a small, and very sharp, knife to cut the apples and throw them into a huge pot to cook. We would be sitting around with Aunt Kitty and we would just talk and laugh and I would try my hardest to do a good job. I was much slower than either my aunt or uncle when it came to cutting the apples and they knew how to do it so incredibly well. After all, they had years of experience while I was still learning.

These two memories have been on my mind these past few days. And while I'm so thankful for the memories themselves, I'm more thankful and oh so very blessed to have these folks in my life to have shared these experiences with.