Sharon Short, Author
  • Home
  • About
    • Behind the Scenes FAQ
  • Books (as Sharon)
    • My One Square Inch of Alaska
    • Josie Toadfern Stain-Busting Mysteries
    • Sanity Check
    • Patricia Delaney eGumshoe Mysteries
  • Books (as Jess)
  • Stories & Essays
  • For Writers
  • Contact

An Ode To Cider

10/16/2014

2 Comments

 
Picture
NOTE: This piece originally appear in my Sanity Check column in the Dayton Daily News.
I stare at the last of this season's apple cider, which I have poured into a wine glass. I've chosen such a fancy glass for what most view as a modest beverage in honor of the cider itself, knowing that once I've imbibed it, I won't have the chance to enjoy cider for another 10 months or so.

I contemplate the deep amber color of the cider. I sniff the crisply tangy yet sweet aroma. Both color and aroma evoke in my mind's eye the scenery along the drive to the orchard where we always buy cider every fall, the Crossroads Orchard, west of the Miami River, nestled on a country road between Miamisburg and Germantown. I see the trees, turning yellow, orange, red, their colors so brightly beautiful against a sky burnished to a deep blue from a summer's worth of hot days, that it hurts, just a little, to look at them.

Then there's the drive back...

We always pause at the top of the hill to stare down at Miamisburg and the church spire and building tops and tree tops and the river and, sometimes, a freight train chugging along on the tracks by the river. Then we drive down the hill and quickly lose our bird's eye view.

But that's OK. We've just experienced autumn the way we most enjoy it—a pretty little country drive, to a pretty little country orchard, operated by some of the nicest people we've ever met.

We tell ourselves it's just the taste of the cider—unlike the thin, homogenized kind you can get at the grocery—that has inspired us to take this trek, Saturday after Saturday, for about 8 or 9 weeks each fall, for the past decade.

But secretly we know, it's just as much about the trek itself.

And now I'm contemplating my last glass of the year. I'm reluctant to sip it, because I have some serious questions.

Will I savor the cider? Or gulp it a little too quickly, as I have several times this autumn, thoughtlessly forgetting to enjoy a pleasure that flits in and out of our lives as quickly as the leaves turn brilliant and then scatter in the first frost-tinged wind?

Or should I invest in a freezer, just for cider? You can freeze it, you know. You just pour a little off the top of the bottle, to give the cider room to expand, and then recap it tightly and pop it in the freezer. It's not as crazy as it sounds. People have cellars just for wine. Why not a freezer just for cider? In its own way, the beverage is just as sweet an experience as wine.

I finally take the first sip of my last glass of this year's cider, making sure to savor the sweet, crisp, tart flavor before swallowing.

And the answer to my cider-freezer question is in the taste and aroma and even the amber color of the cider itself.

If I could have cider any time—say, on New Year's Eve, or in the midst of February, or poolside, July 4—then it wouldn't be a treat. It would become just another commodity in a Big Gulp world. I’d forget the lessons that cider teaches me for several quick weeks every fall.

To feel gratitude for those who craft things like cider.

To pause and enjoy the views.

To relish the trek.

To sip.

To savor.

2 Comments
best dissertation write online link
3/6/2019 08:43:00 am

Apple cider vinegar is the worst thing that I have ever tasted. Well, this is a hyperbolic statement, but nonetheless, it still tastes bad. What makes it worst is the smell that surrounds it. However, despite what it lacks in taste, it more than makes up for it with the health values that they offer. Apple cider vinegar is helpful in maintaining a healthy body for us. There are numerous ways where it can help us, especially when we are sick.

Reply
Walter Parsons link
3/30/2021 05:15:10 am

Goodd reading this post

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Categories

    All
    Books I Love
    Creativity
    Cross Training For Writers
    Literary Life
    Movies
    My One Square Inch Of Alaska
    Pie
    Recipe
    Sanity Check
    Screenwriting
    Waxing Philosophical

    Sharon Short...

    ...is  a novelist, columnist, workshop director, instructor, and a pie enthusiast. As such, she blogs about the literary life, life in general, and pie. Definitely, pie.

    As Jess Montgomery, she writes historical mysteries.

    Archives

    January 2018
    August 2017
    June 2016
    May 2016
    August 2015
    June 2015
    March 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    August 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    December 2012

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly
Photo used under Creative Commons from GabboT