July 8, 2021 (Thursday)
Monday’s blog was about apple turnovers and fried pies. Jo Ann Morgan sent me this email about fried pies. I thought you would enjoy reading it as much as I did.
Jo Ann Morgan
To:Charles Fake
I couldn’t shut the computer down without first telling you a story about fried pies. Wesley’s mother was an excellent “country cook.” She would buy dried peaches, apricots or apples and fix up what looked like biscuit dough. She would flatten out the dough and spoon some of the cooked filling(adding a lot of sugar) onto it, crimp the edges together and cook them in a large skillet with a very small amount of grease, put the lid on and continue baking them, turning them once, until they were a nice light brown color. She sold them through a country store her niece owned. Men going to work in the morning would always stop by and get coffee and one of Granny’s fried pies. It got to where she couldn’t keep up with the demand and had to quit.
One time when she was visiting here in Rockport, she made some peach fried pies. John Michael, Gene McElveen and Mark Goodin happened to be here the day she made them. They were probably 8 or 10 yrs old. Neighborhood kids were all over the place, in and out of one another’s home. The next day I got a phone call from someone trying to disguise their voice and they told me that Kathryn (Su Su) and Lori had been kidnapped and the ransom was 3 of Granny Morgan’s fried peach pies. Of course, I had no idea who it was, right? So I put the fried pies where I was instructed to put them and watched as those same 3 boys came out of the McLain’s house, retrieved the pies and can you believe my two daughters were released unharmed. it was well worth 3 fried pies.
CHARLES TO JO ANN:
Dear Jo Ann, what a wonderful writer you are! I hope you don’t mind my putting your email in this blog. Your writings, collections of letters and diaries, historical experiences and photos from the past enlighten us all. Thank you very much. It is a real privilege to have known you these many years..57 in all.