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The Secrete To Life

My Grandmother use to bake apple pies from scratch. I know because I can remember being in the kitchen with her while she baked them. We would mix and roll the pie crust by hand, while the sliced apples simmered on the back of the stove, in brown sugar, brandy, cornstarch, lemon juice, vanilla extract, and cinnamon. That smell was the best smell in the world! The apples simmering on the back of the stove that is, that was the best smell. My grandmother use to bake the best apple pies too. They were better than any pie ever made. I might be bias because of the fact that she is my grandmother. After all I grew up eating her cooking, so most things don’t compare, despite my culinary background, I still think she is the best southern cook this side of the Mason Dixon line. Watching her work in the kitchen was like watching the miracle of child, full of anticipation, anguish, and you couldn’t wait until she was done.
Even as my grandmother got older, she still managed to prepare my favorite meals, despite not having the ability to maneuver around in the kitchen as good as she use to. By the time my grandmother was in her sixties she had had surgery and one of her legs had been removed which left her in a wheel chair. So the way that she prepared certain dishes had changed quite a bit. I didn’t know that this applied to everything.
I found this out one fine day in my late teens. I had to have been at least seventeen when this horrible fact came to my attention.
I was over my grandmothers house one day. By this time in my life my Grandmother wasn’t living with us anymore. She had found a nice handicapped apartment across town. Any way we weren’t doing anything in particular, just visiting. That’s what we did at grandma’s crib, we hung out. She had just finished dinner when out of no where she says “lets make a pie.” Well of course I screamed “an apple pie! Yea Buddy!” while jumping up and down, clapping my hands like a three year old. (let’s not forget I was well into my teens, and I think a senior in high school) I jumped up off the sofa and ran into the kitchen. I went into the refrigerator and began to pull out all the things that we needed butter milk , flour, eggs, butter, milk, apples,. When My grandmother stopped me.,
“Sweetie” She said. “what are you doing?”
“Getting what we need to start the pie crust”
My grandmother rolled up to me in her wheel chair with a tender smile on her face.
“No honey.” She said” “Look up there in that freezer and hand me them Pillsbury pie crust. The one in the red box.”
At first I was kind of confused. I really didn’t understand, But I did what I was told because it was my grandmother after all. I figured she knew what she was doing. I handed her the pie crust. She unrolled it and placed it in the pie pan. She tapped wholes in the crust and placed several pads of butter on top. While she did that I began to peel the apples, but half way through the first apple she stopped me again.
“No, no, no, no, no Baby” My grandmother said to me again.
“What Grammy” I turned and looked at her. What was she stopping me for? I thought we were making an apple pie?
“Baby, put them apples back in the pantry, and look up there in that cabinet right behind you. then grab them two green cans.”
I turned around and snatched open the cabinet that she had been pointing to. I reached up and grabbed the only two green cans sitting on the shelf. When I pulled them down I read the labels, Golden apples, Is what it said. I handed them to my grandmother. She quietly opened the cans of apples. She dumped them in the pie pan. She squeezed a lemon over the heap of mushy looking apples, then added one cup of sugar, some vanilla extract, and two cap fullest of brandy.
I know I had to be looking at her like she had grown two heads. Because my mother who had been watching us burst out into a fit of laughter. I leaned back against the counter and watched my grandmother finish off her fake apple pie. She topped the it off with the pie crust, cinnamon, a sprinkle of sugar and several pads of butter over the top. Then she slide the pie into the oven.
For some reason I couldn’t make myself move to help her clean up. I just couldn’t believe what I had just seen. It was simply sac-religious for my grandmother to do such a horrible thing. Make a pie using store bought ingredients, not a damn thing was made from scratch. Something inside of me felt like I had been robbed. Not once in all of my childhood had my grandmother ever attempted such a feat., As she cleaned off her mess, and tossed the empty cans in the trash I swear I felt tears swelling up in my eyes. It was as if someone had told me all at once that the Easter bunny had died, Santa wasn’t real, and the tooth fairy was just my aunt Dee sneaking into my room at night after I had gone to sleep. Right there all of my childhood had died.
My mother walked over to me, still chuckling softly to herself. She wrapped one hand around my waste and pulled me very close. I think that she could sense my hurt, anger, and frustration. Then she said to me in a very motherly tone.
“You got a fake ass grandmother, she can’t even make a real apple pie.”
It was then that my heart dropped several decimals. Of course my mother was play with me, but I was actually very hurt. How in the world did this happen? I wondered to myself. When the pie was done, my grandmother pulled it out of the oven. Then she sat it on the counter to let it cool. I stood in the kitchen and I watched that pie, wondering how I was ever going to look at my grandmother the same after watching her make it the way she had. She was no longer my own personal Betty Crocker, No she was some one else. Later she cut me a peace and handed it to me. I poured myself a cup of coffee and sat down at the table, I took a big fork full and was pleasantly surprised. It tasted just like my grandmother’s original made from scratch pie. When I looked at her and asked her how did she make it taste the same as before. My grandmother simply said to me.
“I made it the same way I made all my pies with lots of butter, and a little bit of love.”
It was then that UI realized what the secrete to life was. BUTTER.