Almost July is not normally the best time to plant ornamentals, but I’m still pretty sure that these daylilies are going to make it. It’s Saturday, and I am ambitiously planning (with help from some young people neighbors) planting some sun loving flowers out front. It will be a hot day today in Winston-Salem, North Carolina as July ambles into view. “Look, look Marie!” “Look at what the boys have done!” My dramatic grandmother Lady then walked over with her own best surprised look arrayed across her face, exclaiming “Julia, I did not know these boys could create such beautiful pies…!”įast forward 50 years. With hands held up, fingers splayed wide, framing her face feigning delighted surprise, Julia called my grandmother over to view our edible art. Julia taught my brother and I to make pie crusts too, cutting the dough into strips, interlacing those strips at 90 degree angles to each other across the soft sweet apple pie filling mounded up in the pan, fluting the dough edges, then sprinkling the top with white granulated Imperial “Pure Cane” sugar. Julia had shared her cooking, wit, and wisdom with my family for many years, and was probably already well into her 70s on that bright summer day over 50 years ago. My younger brother and I were in my grandmother “Lady’s” bright white tile Texas kitchen, with the woman I knew as “Julia” instructing.
The child I was knew the fledgling biscuit was cut, almost perfectly round. Then the hard “clack” as the glass struck the countertop. I can still remember the gentle resistance to the clear drinking glass rim as I pressed it through the soft biscuit dough.