Mine may be the last generation with a collective recall of grandmothers in floury aprons rolling out pie dough.
This is not to say it doesn't still happen, but there have been too many changes in what we do, how we do it and who does it, to stuff that genie back into the bottle. I'd fight mightily to preserve most of the changes.
But the smell of Grandma Mohn's kitchen when she made apple pies (never one) is sharper in my mind today than it was when LBJ was in office.
The apples came in bushels or peck baskets from roadside farmer stands or friends with trees. I gouged and yanked small hunks of apple skin off with the large peeler in my small hands while my grandmother smoothly stripped curling, crimson ribbons without barely a glance at her work. Her hands worked efficently, mechanically and apparently independently of the person.
Grandma was intent on talking or listening to the current visitors to her kitchen salon. She had a dining room and a parlor... and I have no recollection of spending any time in either. But even today, I can describe every drawer pull in the kitchen.
She taught me well. I made "good pies" as I got into my teen years, but somehow lost both the impetus and ability in the years of chasing dreams and jobs in other states.
Grandma Mohn died in the early 1980s, but she was front and center when I heard myself volunteering to make apple pies for the homeless shelter where my friend Mary had volunteered to make today's meal.
Yesterday, I navigated Charlie out to an old family cider press operation to buy the apples and show-off a little more Western New York tradition.
But instead of an open area overflowing with apples and the freshest of cider, the plant was now quite modern with liquid storage silos, locked doors on a sleekly modern office building and a parking lot full of truck/ rail containers from WalMart, Sam's Clubs and others chain drains on special.
I was temporarily stymied. It was too late in the season for roadside stands. I could imagine what Grandma would say about paying "store prices" for "pie apples" but used the end purpose to justify filling a shopping cart.
The black granite countertops in our loft have likely never experienced such an assault of flour and fresh. Four hours and eight pies later, we cut into the one we had reserved for ourselves.
It tasted just like home.
I'm so glad to be back.


Copyright 2005 Judi Griggs