BEVERLY
VARNADO
Fried Apple Pies
To sit down at my grandmother’s red checked covered kitchen table always meant a special treat. One of the most anticipated was her fried apple pies. She prepared them in much the same way Jubilee does in Coming to Currahee.
Like him she spread screens on saw horses in her back yard, and laid out thin slices of apple to dry in the Georgia sun. Cheesecloth protected them from debris. A thunderstorm approaching meant scrambling to get the screens under cover, so the apples wouldn’t get wet.
When it came time to cook the pies, today we’d probably call to have our cardiologist standing by, as my grandmother fried them in “lard.” (for the uninitiated, lard is animal fat) Thankfully, Jubilee has been influenced by his daughter’s health conscience attitude and now cooks his pies in canola oil. My grandmother kept hers in a pie safe just like the one Addie has in Coming to Currahee. Dried apples could be kept for many months, so we enjoyed the pies almost year round.
Drying apples was called “laying away” for the winter, something once practiced regularly in generations past. Today, our “laying away” mostly consists of pension plans and stock investments. But there’s another kind of “laying away.” “ Proverbs 7:1 says “My son keep my words, and store up my commands within you.”
Daily study of the Bible helps us to “keep God’s words” and provides a foundation for our lives. The word of God supports us in times when winds of adversity threaten to blow us down. “Laying away” the word of God in our hearts will reap benefits not just for the winter of the year or the winter of our lives, but for all eternity.
© Copyright 2008, Beverly Varnado
Looking for Dahlias
When I heard June’s next door neighbor, Bertha, talking about the man on Sage Street who raised dinner plate sized dahlias(Mr. McCurley, I believe was his name). Like June, I thought I’d plant some. Sadly, after speaking with a consultant at my local home and garden store I learned I live too far south to raise those big dahlias. The cooler mountain air at Currahee is more conducive to their growth. I was quite sad to have to give up the idea as Bertha had shown me a photo of Mr. McCurley standing by his dahlias. They were almost to his shoulders, and dinner plate would be an accurate description of the size of the blooms. I wound up settling for some dahlia bulbs which promised to produce lovely smaller blooms in my climate. However, the drought the summer after I planted them kept them from producing, then my Labradors must have dug them up, because I never saw any sign of them again. Just when I’d given up on big blooms, some sunflower seeds from the bird feeder sprouted during a rainy period. They kept growing and growing until I had these huge buds on chest-high plants. When they bloomed, the stunning golden faces of the flowers almost seemed animated. I half expected them to start talking as they followed the sun from east to west every day. Like Dorothy who went to Oz and back only to discover that happiness was in her own back yard, I, too, found the magnificent flowers I’d looked for had been with me all along in the sunflower seeds. We often overlook the subtle, but full of potential ways God is working in our lives. He has sown seeds of beauty into each of our hearts. With spiritual nurture, and in his time, He will bring forth a harvest for his glory.
Beverly was included in
Faith & Finances,
released January 2010
(click on the cover to go to the book's site)
