They Kidnapped my APPLE BUTTER, Part II

Meet Delores (aka "Grama")

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Be careful what you write, you don’t know who is reading. Luckily, the readers of the apple butter article have been remarkably responsive. A week ago, I got a letter from a
Nebraska Life subscriber named Delores who had enjoyed the article to such a degree that she sent me a jar of Arbor Day Farm apple butter.

The ironic twist was that this extraordinarily generous (and well-read!) woman, Delores, started Grama’s, Inc. the company that makes and packages the very apple butter I bought in Nebraska City.

Delores started Grama’s, Inc., a company based in Lincoln, Nebraska, 25 years ago so that she could commercially make and market the jams, jellies, and fruit butters she remembers her own grandmother making. To purchase her exquisitely, sweet, and yummy apple butter visit Arbor Day Farm. Grama's, Inc. products are also available through Amazon (under Grama's, Inc gourmet foods.) However, I’d advise you put it in your checked luggage.

P.S. Thank You, Delores (aka "Grama"!)

They Kidnapped My APPLE BUTTER!

About this time last year, I was sloshing around in the rain with my grandmother and my mom at Arbor Day Farm in Nebraska City. We could’ve done it another day, but that’s the thing about short visits ~ before you’ve even arrived, you realize that time you haven’t even lived yet has already been eaten away.

The other part of it was my stubbornness. Blame it on my heavy German-Russian blood and my inherent pioneer spirit, but I was determined to go to Arbor Day Farm and I was going to do it that day.

What’s a little rain?

I just happened to drag both my mom and my grandmother into this little “Apple” daydream of mine.

For some reason in all of this, I’d become fixated on apple butter.

“Must buy apple butter in Nebraska City,” my mind kept telling me.

I think part of it was just my oddly growing nostalgia for all things Nebraskan, particularly the trees and the apples and the whole experience of autumn in the Midwest.

So, I was not happy when TSA Security at Eppley Airfield confiscated my apple butter, claiming that it fell into “gel or liquid” territory.

(Yeah, it also happens to be really, really good!)

However, I approach every setback as an opportunity to tell a great story later.

The kidnapping of my apple butter that cold, rainy Nebraska day has been recounted in a piece I wrote: Mishaps and Nebraska Mementos, published in this month’s Nebraska Life Magazine.