I have always loved apples. I enjoy a variety of fruits, but apples are, by far, my favorite.

We were poor. I barely recall living there, but we rented a house in what would be called ‘the projects.’ It wasn’t much to look at: a square-shaped bungalow with a porch out front.

My mom used a wringer washer to do the laundry, the type with parallel bars through which wet clothes were fed, to remove excess water. It scared me sh###.

I don’t recall being hungry, but I did yearn for things. Candy was such a rarity that it seldom came to mind. I loved apples. They were the treat I begged for when my brother asked for sweets.

Until I was fourteen, my family lived in rural Ohio, in a town called Beavercreek. We had a backyard garden in which we grew tomatoes, green beans, corn, carrots and even blackberries. But we had no fruit trees.

We were never too far from farm country, and so every now and then the family would get in the car. My dad loved to explore, so often he’d get out a paper map and devise a plan to go in search of a river or park or fishing hole.

My favorite outings were to buy fresh eggs, sacks of potatoes, or bushels of peaches and apples. In case you’re wondering, we carried home fruit in actual wooden barrels.

There seemed to be too much for immediate consumption. My mom stored potatoes in the crawl space under the back porch. Peaches were sliced, cooked and canned, saved for future use. My mom always made one peach pie that we’d have after dinner.

Considering that dessert was a rare treat, imagine biting into a piece of freshly made peach pie, topped with vanilla ice cream, if we had any.

The apples my parents bought had a variety of uses. Some were cut into chunks and then cooked with cinnamon. We’d eat those bites with our dinner.

Sometimes she made applesauce that was quite different from the canned stuff we bought at the store. My mom’s had soft chunks of apples, while the store-bought had been cooked to a mush. My mom added cinnamon, a spice the canned variety lacked.

As she was peeling and slicing the apples, my mom would give us each a slice or two. That was a real treat.

Most of the apples my parents bought were used for baking. Mom would slice them up, add sugar and other seasonings, then turn the mixture into pie shells. Sometimes she’d make my favorite, apple dumplings.

Once, when I was living independently, I tried replicating her dumplings. I followed her instructions for the dough. I was pleased when it in the correct consistency and smiled bigger when it was the right thickness after I rolled it into sheets. Using a sharp knife, I then made dough squares.

I cut up the apples, added seasonings, them carefully layered them in the squares. I pulled the edges up and over each mound of apples, then pinched the tops together to seal the dumpling.

The syrup to be poured over the dumplings was the last step of the process. I followed her recipe; it seemed to be the right consistency and smelled like sweetened syrup. Before putting the dumplings in the oven, a generous amount of syrup was poured over the dumplings.

This step was repeated several times as the dumplings cooked.

My finished product smelled like what my mom used to make. As they cooled, I got fidgety, waiting to see if I had successfully recreated her masterpiece.

They were edible, but not nearly as good.

The problem? Like many older cooks, the recipe was in my mom’s head, and when she wrote it down, she must have forgotten a key ingredient or an important step.

After that I tried a version in my cookbook, but it wasn’t right either.

I gave up trying.

No matter. While I fail at pie baking or dumpling making, there’s nothing that matches the taste of a fresh, crisp apple.

As long as my teeth hold up, I plan on eating an apple every single day.