Apple Pie

Back in the late 1950s and early '60s, the school ground in Dargan was the place to be if you wanted to play a little baseball. All the kids in the community would enjoy their summer vacations from school by playing the most popular sport. Nothing quite like a good baseball game or two and a slice of Grandma's homemade apple pie later. As we prepared for a big game, I would often toss a bat to another player and while we both grasped the bat we would place one hand above each other's until the last hand rested on the top of the bat. That person would then have first choice on choosing his team.

ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. - A 28-year-old woman in Orange County stabbed her husband during a fight that sparked over having hot dogs for dinner, according to a sheriff's office report. Officers said the woman apparently had prepared a dinner for her husband that consisted of hot dogs. At some point, the man snatched the plate of hot dogs from his wife's hands, the report said. The action prompted the woman to stab her husband in the shoulder with a steak knife, according to authorities.

martinsburg@herald-mail.com They used different rolling pins, mixing bowls, apples and recipes. The nine women and two men who gathered in the kitchen of the James Rumsey Technical Institute in Hedgesville Friday peeled their apples differently and cut unique patterns into the crust. In the end, each had made a pie for the apple pie baking contest, part of the 23rd Annual Mountain State Apple Harvest Festival. Contestants staked out a spot in the kitchen Friday morning and neatly arranged their bowls and ingredients.

kristinw@herald-mail.com Sweet, buttery and cinnamon-scented baking apples - the aroma of an apple pie is hard to mistake. There is something about this famous fall dessert that makes mouths water and reminds the senses that harvest season is in the midst. Yet apple pie is not as simple as it seems. Pies come in as many varieties as there are apples and nearly every pie lover thinks the "perfect pie" is something different. Some like apple pie deep, others prefer thin.

The Washington County Republican Party plans to help raise money for Hospice - and itself. The Republican Party Central Committee is sponsoring the Harvest Moon Hoe Down next Saturday beginning at 5:30 p.m. The hoe down, which costs $25 per person and $40 per couple, will be held at the Williamsport American Legion picnic grounds. The event will include a meal of chicken, steamers, chili, apple pie and other delicacies, dancing, a live six-piece band, hay rides, raffles and games.

The Boone Hotel, built a few years after Boonsboro was founded in 1792, was one of the first stone buildings built in the town. "It dates back to between 1798 to 1805," said Doug Bast, local historian and owner of Bast Furniture in Boonsboro. Initially known as the Eagle Hotel, it had a number of different names through the years. The U.S. Hotel, which is on the opposite corner from the Boone Hotel, was built in 1813 as a private home, Bast said. It later was used as a ladies' seminary, then a hotel.

21st Apple harvest festival By KATE COLEMAN / Staff Writer Mountain State Apple Harvest Festival is coming of age. The event marks its 21st year this weekend in Berkeley County, W.Va. continued The festival, as all-American as apple pie and a marching band, will have apple pie and marching bands and much more. The weekend will be full of entertainment, fireworks, arts and crafts, and apple-pie baking, apple-peeling and eating contests. The highlight of the Apple Harvest Festival, the Grand Feature Parade, will begin at 1 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 21. The Clear Spring High School Blazer Band, which took first place in last year's 20th-anniversary parade, is getting ready to defend that title and reclaim the trophy the school won several times in the last decade.

GREENCASTLE, Pa. -- What tastes better than mom's apple pie? Maybe Ginny Lays' peach-raspberry pie. Or Allyson Flynn's pecan chocolate chunk. Or, just maybe, one of a number of other crusted creations presented for judging Friday at the first Pie Baking Contest held in Greencastle. The bake-off was part of First Friday, which is sponsored by the Greencastle-Antrim Chamber of Commerce and Greencastle Area Arts Council. Pie judges were Pennsylvania state Rep. Todd Rock, Greencastle Mayor Robert Eberly, Tower Bank President and CEO Jeff Shank and Carissa Martin, owner of Antrim House Restaurant.

MERCERSBURG, Pa. - "I love making cookies," said Jean Woodring of Mercersburg. That declaration is an understatement. Woodring has been making cookies for years. A stay-at-home mom, she laughed that she made cookies for her children to take to school - even through their high school years. A son and daughter are grown and married with children of their own. Sixteen-year-old Katie is still at home, a junior at James Buchanan High School. A few years ago, Woodring got a phone call from her daughter at work at First National Bank of Mercersburg.

waynesboro@herald-mail.com GREENCASTLE, Pa. - Today was supposed to have been Dana Given's last day as executive director of the Greencastle-Antrim Chamber of Commerce. She announced May 23 that she was leaving the job to become director of children's and women's ministries at her church. Sometime between those dates, Given, 36, changed her mind. She decided to forego the church job and stay on as head of the Chamber. One of the Chamber's board members brought her an apple pie on hearing the news that she had decided to stay on. "I got all kinds of calls from people who said they were excited that I was staying.

Back in the late 1950s and early '60s, the school ground in Dargan was the place to be if you wanted to play a little baseball. All the kids in the community would enjoy their summer vacations from school by playing the most popular sport. Nothing quite like a good baseball game or two and a slice of Grandma's homemade apple pie later. As we prepared for a big game, I would often toss a bat to another player and while we both grasped the bat we would place one hand above each other's until the last hand rested on the top of the bat. That person would then have first choice on choosing his team.

Apples have a cherished place in American values. From Johnny Appleseed to apple pie, the United States wouldn't seem the same if apples had not appeared on the plates and in the cups of our forebears. Patty Power, co-owner of Distillery Lane Ciderworks in Burkittsville, said American pioneers didn't grow apples for food. "Originally, apples were grown to drink. They weren't grown with the expectation of just eating them," Power said. "When they kept the cider long enough, it would turn, and they would drink hard cider.

Plans to demolish McDonald's in Martinsburg's south end on Apple Harvest Drive to make way for a new McDonald's also include the demolition of a neighboring motel. The Krista Lite Motel will be torn down and the lot it currently sits on near Exit 12 of Interstate 81 will be elevated and graded to the level of the McDonald's property to make way for the new, larger restaurant, said Susan Erwin, who owns the McDonald's business. "We're tripling the size of the parking and tripling the size of the building," Erwin said.

"Last week they had a thing in the paper about they're thinking about speed cameras and red light cameras, and as far as I'm concerned, they ought to just be honest and say that it's for revenue and stop all the rest of this bull, because I drive commercially and I've never seen that many people in Hagerstown that have gone through red lights. The biggest problem in Hagerstown is the 'right on red after stop.' And in the school zones, there's surely enough police in Hagerstown that they could put one at each of the schools in town.

WILLIAMSPORT - Nonie Johnson, 74, loves eating fresh foods. Even when she and her husband of 54 years, Roger, moved from Martinsburg, W.Va., to Homewood at Williamsport, it was hard to give up their garden. But at the retirement community, Johnson still has a little patch of land to cultivate. "It's near the creek," she said. "We try to go there every day. " That's where she picked the zucchini she used for two dishes -zucchini pie and zucchini dessert. Although, she admits that this dry, hot summer limited the number of squash she was able to grow.

GREENCASTLE, Pa. -- What tastes better than mom's apple pie? Maybe Ginny Lays' peach-raspberry pie. Or Allyson Flynn's pecan chocolate chunk. Or, just maybe, one of a number of other crusted creations presented for judging Friday at the first Pie Baking Contest held in Greencastle. The bake-off was part of First Friday, which is sponsored by the Greencastle-Antrim Chamber of Commerce and Greencastle Area Arts Council. Pie judges were Pennsylvania state Rep. Todd Rock, Greencastle Mayor Robert Eberly, Tower Bank President and CEO Jeff Shank and Carissa Martin, owner of Antrim House Restaurant.

Editor's note: The Herald-Mail's pie contest for 2009 has been canceled. Cherry pie. Apple pie. Coconut pie. Pecan pie - a personal favorite, but we're not judging the contest, so don't think that will help you. It's time for The Herald-Mail's third annual pie contest. This year's winner of the pie contest will receive $50. Dessert pies only - no pizza pies or potpies. No cheesecakes. Entries must be a pie-shaped dessert with crust. Pies will be judged on taste, appearance, originality of the recipe and overall quality.

Dear Lynne: What's the deal with apple pie? Mom, Johnny Appleseed and all that are good reads, the apple filling is fine, but the bottom crust is like wet cardboard. I don't get the attraction. Now if you know the magic for a crisp bottom crust, I'd give Mom's apple pie a shot and be grateful. -- Love Mom, But Not Her Soggy Pie Dear Love Mom: Every fruit pie suffers from this and the cure is twofold. First, bake the bottom crust to dry it out before you put in the fruit filling.

CHAMBERSBURG, Pa. -- The Pennsylvania budget crisis has organizations across the state tightening their belts, and among that list is the Franklin County Fair. The fair has been unable to pay monetary prizes for many winning vegetables, animals, crafts and baked goods because, this year, the 103-year-old event is basically broke. Fair President Robert Eckstine said the organization is struggling to keep its doors open. "Struggling?" he asked. "We are struggling, struggling, struggling, struggling so that I had to send a letter to our exhibitors this year telling them that we might not be able to pay the premium for their event.