Making applesauce? Use caution!

Every fall my mother-in-law Edna produced dozens of jars of applesauce. Her sweet but tart recipe was given more notoriety than any other food item on the holiday table except for her West Virginia yeast rolls. More on this later.

Now the responsibility and the tradition to make applesauce has fallen on my husband and me! The word tradition connotes a lovely sentiment. Can we say the fruit of our labor is a messy six-hour time commitment?