I’ve been spending a lot of time with Amish friends recently. I’m always humbled to be welcomed into their homes and into their lives. Their hospitality encourages me to be a better version of myself. It’s easy to forget I’m the outsider, or an Amish fiction author, until something funny happens and they tell me to not put that in a book. LOL.

All jokes aside, they have been wonderfully forthcoming, helping me navigate my characters properly. I learned so much through our friendships, and they have also been as equally engaging as we share gardening tricks, off-the-grid living, and our frugal lifestyles. We are friends, Christians, and neighbors. Not one of us is more or less than the other.

That being said, I was really surprised my dear friends Mary and Christine recently put up 82 quarts of applesauce. Of course I no longer have all our children living at home, so maybe 82 quarts would have been wonderful back then. Unfortunately, I’ve made applesauce many times, but it often sit on the shelf, later becoming something we fed to the hogs when our farm was still thriving. I’ve tried so many recipes, yet mine has never held that flavor I had hoped to achieve. When Mary sent me a small sampling of hers, I was floored. It was that flavor, the one from childhood that I loved so much, right there in my hands.

Christine talked me through the simple process. With a half bushel of Crispens, which I’m told is the only apple you will ever need for applesauce, and handy mill, I gave it another shot.

Success!!! And what’s best, is that it has no sugar in it.

Now if they could teach me how to sew.