Note: thanks to Yvette Prior’s anthology, This Is How We Eat, which I reviewed here, for about the next month, every Sunday, I’ll share my memories of and gratitude for foods beginning with consecutive letters of the alphabet. You may not want to read these posts on an empty stomach. Here’s the first installment. Happy eating!
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My first memory of eating an apple was of my sadistic fifth grade teacher at the Arizona State School for the Deaf & Blind forcing me to do so. She got this idea in her head that I should try new foods. She only singled me out for this treatment, and I’ll probably never know why.
I hated the apple’s bitter taste. But I had to stay in the classroom and eat it one day after everyone else left for gym class. I couldn’t do anything else until I did. I managed to get it down, but it all came back up. I’d love to say that it ended up all over the teacher’s front. But being a well-mannered child, I no doubt aimed for the wastebasket.
Soon after that, my father and I tried making homemade applesauce. I don’t know what inspired us to do this. I remember buying apples from a local grocer, but the rest of our process details are sketchy. I believe we peeled the apples, boiled them, sliced them into small pieces, added sugar, and let them simmer on the stove awhile. I don’t think the finished product was as good as the store-bought variety but at least we tried.
Though I’ve never enjoyed the taste of apples, I’ve always loved apple juice, applesauce, apple pie, etc. As an adult trying to limit my sugar consumption in an attempt to prevent diabetes, which runs in my family, I only eat unsweetened applesauce. I indulge in other apple treats once in a while, thankful for my apple memories.
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What have you been thankful for this past week? It doesn’t have to be food. Please share in the comments or on your blog with a link to this post. Thank you for reading. Always be grateful!
Photo Courtesy of Tess Anderson Photography
Photo Resize and Description
by Two Pentacles Publishing
New! Living Vicariously in Wyoming: Stories
Copyright 2025 by Abbie Johnson Taylor
Published independently with the help of DLD Books.
Image Description written by Leonore Dvorkin of DLD Books.
As defined in the first story, living vicariously means living your life through someone else’s. You’re invited to live vicariously through the lives of the people in these stories. There’s the lawyer who catches his wife in the act with a nun. A college student identifies with a character in a play. A young woman loses her mother and finds her father. And a high school student’s prudish English teacher strenuously objects to a single word in her paper.
In Wyoming, as in any other state, people fall in love, and sometimes relationships are shattered. Accidents, domestic violence, prejudice, and crimes all occur. Lives are torn apart, and people are reunited. Ordinary people deal with everyday and not–so–everyday situations.
The 25 stories in this collection, most of which are set in Wyoming, are about how the various characters resolve their conflicts—or not.
Click here for more information and ordering links.
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