【by Sadie Zeiner-Morrish】

Making applesauce (it didn’t taste as good as the kind from the jar) still, I’ve never told my mother that,
that I didn’t like it very much. We used to take those ShopRite apples and turn them into something special,
or at least that’s what Mom said, because she wanted to be like the other chicken-raising, whole- wheat-flour moms, without spending precious money at the farmer’s market.
We’d peel ‘em first, me and my sister, tossing the pieces over our shoulders like in the books, looking for initials of the husbands we’d marry.
Then we’d boil ‘em in the big pot, feeding the skins to the dogs—how happy those apples looked! Bubbles jumping up,
getting soft. We’d eat it warm too, and thick with chunks
no white sugar, just boiled apples. I’d make a good face, eating that mush, and put away my dish when I was done.
Afterwards we’d freeze it, containers stacked one after the other as if we’d come back to it.