I’m thinking that applesauce might be a test of character. Let me back up far enough to explain this.

Our church sits in the middle of our small city, and every Monday evening 150-250 neighbors drop in for supper. These Community Meals are prepared and served by church groups from around the city and the just-outlying areas.

Twice a year our Sunday school class takes its turn. We love to do it. It’s work, but the people who come to eat are gracious and grateful. They enlarge our worlds.

We come up with a menu, divvy up who makes what, and cook most of the food from scratch.

Merle and I had shown up to help serve the meal when my friend Barb came walking toward the tables, carrying a gargantuan steel bowl of applesauce. It was the purest-looking, most glistening, golden applesauce that I have ever seen. I caught her eye and asked if she had made it. “Yes,” she said.

I know this woman can cook, so I bee-lined it to the kitchen area and swiped a spoonful from her back-up containers. Just as I expected, the applesauce was as purely fresh and sparkling to taste as it was to see. This was Eden. This was also the middle of the winter, so she hadn’t just whipped this up on a whim.

“Well,” I spluttered to Barb, “if I had made such extraordinarily flavorful applesauce, I’d have stashed it in my freezer and dribbled it out on special occasions for me and my most-loved ones.”
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