If I read anymore about apple pies, I'm going to have to go to the kitchen and make a few. My mom was probably one of the best cooks you'd ever want to meet. Her dad refused to give her permission to marry, partly because she had been the cook of the family (13 kids) since she was 12. (She eloped) She fried many apple pies for our family, 9 of 13 kids. (13 seemed to be the lucky number in her family.) Col. Sanders never knew what really delicious fried chicken was, because he never ate my mother's. (We lived in the same town!) She had a special iron skillet for her chicken and one for her cornbread. I watched her clean and cut up chickens with her big handmade butcherknife many many times. She could cut a chicken into more pieces than you thought a chicken had. When her knifeblade came down on the joint of two pieces, it was like Robin Hood splitting an arrow with an arrow. She never missed. Mention was made of heating bricks for the bed, corn in the bags, and dried apples covered with cheesecloth. You might appreciate this: When my mother was small, on cold winter nights they would gather eggs from the hens' nest that had frozen and were slightly cracked. These eggs couldn't be sold at the general store. Before bedtime, chestnuts were put in a brown paper bag, the frozen eggs wrapped in cheesecloth, and they were placed in the coals of the fireplace. Sometimes the eggs would slip out of the cheesecloth, explode, and cause a train of confusion and laughter among the kids. They couldn't eat too many chestnuts because they caused bloating. Her mother made what they called maple syrup sugar cakes. That's what she took to school in her lunch bucket. The buckets were all put in the creek until time to eat. (Creek flowed down from a mtn spring) Remember, they didn't get to go to school in the dead of winter. It was much too cold, and too far for the children to walk. She used to laugh and say the boys looked like a bunch of little frogs squatting on big rocks while they ate their lunches. When my older siblings were small, cars didn't have heaters. My dad went downtown to look at cars and came home driving a new 1923 Chevrolet. He'd never driven a car. The car had button flaps over the windows to keep out wind and dust. In winter, Mama heated bricks and concrete blocks, wrapped them with old quilts or blankets, put them in the car and everyone put their feet on them to keep warm until journey's end. There's something about those old-time stories!!!! Pat O'Neal -----Original Message----- From: Robert Crabtree <crabtree@speedlink.com> To: SW_VA-L@rootsweb.com <SW_VA-L@rootsweb.com> Date: Friday, February 19, 1999 7:52 PM Subject: RE: Dried Apples >Thirteen Steps and Fried Apple Pies > >I had a problem getting to school on time. Regardless of what I did, >I was fifteen minutes late each morning. I had to walk about a mile >or so down the road, across the short cut by the Webbs and through the >woods to Rowling's Holler. I usually ate breakfast on the way. >Mom made the best fried apple pies. I guess they are called apple >tarts or something like that now. But anyway, This morning was no >different than all the others, I was running late again. Sure I was >embarrassed by it. Staying after school and writing on the blackboard >had no effect. Mom would say her part and add, "go ahead and screw up >and let old Maude kick you". In other words, "screw up and pay the >price, usually where it hurts." And on this morning, those words took >on a new meaning. >I hadn't noticed that we had one of those freezing rains over night. >Those thirteen steps going down to the road were covered with this >near invisible clear ice. I went running down the walk with a fried >apple pie in each hand. When I hit that top step, my feet went >straight out and my rear bounced down each of those steps one by one. >I held on to those pies with arms flapping straight out from my body >and I probably looked like a little mallard learning to fly. In any >case, the pies survived except for being squeezed a bit. I was a >little later than usual that morning, with a sore rear but with a full >tummy. I was just glad no one had seen me. > > >==== SW_VA Mailing List ==== >#5 It is YOUR responsibility to know how to SUBSCRIBE & UNSUBSCRIBE. It is done >by computer. Put the word SUBSCRIBE in the body of the message with nothing >else. The address is sw_va-l-request@rootsweb.com . or -d- for DIGEST mode. >All this is in the Welcome statement I ask you to save. -sysop > >