The "Dessert for Dinner" Story

It was an ordinary day. Just got back from Stauffers of Kissel Hill Grocery Store and put my lunch in the microwave. Having an apple dumpling for lunch. Yep, dessert for lunch. Why not? I got a package of two and hid the other one in the back of the fridge for tomorrow. Felt so guilty not sharing one with my wife that when she came home from work I told her what I did and that if she would like the other one, it was in the fridge. "Funny you bought that today," she said. "I was just talking to Brynn (our daughter) last night and she was telling me about writing something on Facebook about apple dumplings. Call her tonight and ask her what it was," she continued. I gave Brynn a call and she said Jennifer wrote on her page, "Let's skip dinner and just eat apple dumplings!!!!" Jennifer is my cousin Judy's daughter. She works at the dentist's office that is directly across the street from our house. The next response, from Deb, said, "Ok. Sounds good to me! Can we have ice cream with it too?" And the next response, from my daughter was, "Carol Woods used to serve us apple dumplings FOR dinner. Go with that. Shortly after that Jennifer wrote, "Brynn, I TOTALLY remember my mom doing the same thing every fall....I would feel so guilty doing that now. Well, l remember back in the 60s, 70s and 80s when my wife would make apple dumplings, often, and we would have them as our evening meal. Not as a treat, but as a cheap meal. We struggled, having three children and me being a teacher. Teachers didn't make much during that time and with the price of flour, sugar and apples, it was a cheap meal. And it was a nutritious meal, wasn't it. Had most of the major food groups in it. Fruit in the apples, dairy (always poured milk over them), carbohydrates in the dough and we did get some proteins in the milk. I guess you can justify anything if you have to. In 1980 Carol and I made a cookbook which we sold to the public that had her famous recipe in it for apple dumplings. She still get comments about how good they are. My only question to her after our apple dumpling reminiscing was, "So when are we having them again?" It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy. PS - original page from the cookbook follows.