More Than Cherry Pie
There has always been something sacred about a table.
Long before I understood recipes or rolling pie crusts, I learned that God often does His quietest work around ordinary meals. A family gathered after church. Neighbors lingering over coffee. Children helping in the kitchen. Conversations that couldn’t happen anywhere else because everyone was busy passing biscuits, pouring sweet tea, or waiting for the pie to cool.
Looking back, I don’t think my grandmother knew she was teaching far more than how to cook or bake.
She simply loved people well.
Some people inherit jewelry.
Some inherit family land.
I inherited recipes, stories, and the understanding that love often smells like something coming out of the oven.
My grandma Simmons was everything you imagine when you think of a Southern lady. She could cook, bake, host a table full of people, and somehow make everyone who walked through her door feel like they belonged there. She had a way of making everyone feel like she was their grandma. She and my granddad had three boys, and when I came along—the first grandchild and the only little girl at the time—it didn’t take long for me to become the granddaughter they spoiled beyond reason.
Looking back now, I realize the greatest gift they ever gave me wasn’t a recipe card.
It was a way of loving people.
I was blessed to spend the last six months of Grandma’s life closely beside her. In truth, I had spent much of my childhood with my grandparents already, but those final months became treasures I didn’t know I would need. I still miss her every single day.
When I became a mother, especially a single mother, I knew there were things I wanted my children to carry with them into adulthood. Not expensive things. Useful things.
God tells His people to teach the next generation as they walk through life together—not only in formal lessons, but in ordinary moments. Our kitchen became one of those classrooms and I did not even know it was happening at the time. I was not saved, I did not know what God was truly about.
I am teaching them how to wash dishes, do laundry, scrub toilets, sweep, mop, vacuum, mow the yard, care for the animals, maintain a car, drive, grocery shop, and manage a home.
Some of these lessons are harder taught than others and I am grateful for the support of several people who love my children as I do, that teach them the things I cannot.
They learn because someday I won’t always be there, and I want them to step into adulthood with confidence instead of fear.
Mostly from me, they learn to cook.
Grandma had her rhythm. Certain meals belonged to certain days, and that routine worked beautifully for her family.
My kitchen has its own rhythm.
I meal plan for a month, shop every week or two, and keep our table filled with variety. Along the way, my palate expanded far beyond chicken tenders and fries, and thankfully, so did theirs. Living with Crohn’s meant our kitchen had to change over the years. Foods came and went depending on what my body could tolerate, but one thing never changed—I wanted my children to be adventurous, confident cooks who weren’t afraid to try something new.
Today my children love food, not just eating it, but understanding it.
They’ll happily make fried pork chops with milk gravy one night, tacos the next, homemade pasta another evening, curries, grilled steaks, seafood, or whatever new recipe catches their attention. They experiment with marinades, seasonings, and spices because they genuinely enjoy learning why a recipe works instead of simply following directions.
Watching them in the kitchen has become one of my favorite parts of motherhood.
My son has developed an instinct for savory cooking that surprises me almost every time he serves dinner. My daughter, though…she bakes.
Whether she’s working from the back of a cake mix box or a recipe card that’s older than she is, she has a gentle confidence about her. Every time I watch her measure flour or scrape batter into a pan, I catch glimpses of Grandma Simmons.
Many of Grandma’s bowls and kitchen tools are no longer with us, and that’s alright. She was resourceful. She cooked with what she had, and somehow everything tasted like home. I do use tools similar to hers, from measuring cups, baking sheets, to fry pans and ingredients too.
She passed away in 2016, when my daughter was eight and my son was six. They remember her, but not the way I do.
So I tell the stories.
Every chance I get.
Because memories fade unless someone keeps telling them.
That matters to me.
Family heritage isn’t just a genealogy chart tucked into a drawer somewhere. It’s knowing why Grandma always had a meal to feed far more of us than were expected. And why there was always a dessert waiting. It’s remembering who taught you to make homemade biscuits. It’s laughing over stories told around the dinner table for the hundredth time because everyone already knows the ending.
Growing up, the table was the center of everything.
Weekend breakfasts.
Sunday dinners.
Holidays.
Birthday parties.
A random Tuesday when neighbors stopped by.
When life was good, we gathered around the table.
When life was hard, we gathered around the table.
When someone celebrated, we cooked.
When someone grieved, we cooked.
Food wasn’t simply nourishment.
It was comfort.
It was hospitality.
It was forgiveness.
It was conversation.
It was family.
Those meals stitched together the memories that still hold me today.
I hope my children carry that same thread into their own homes someday.
Not because they’ll make every recipe exactly the way I did.
Not because they’ll serve cherry pie after Sunday dinner.
But because they’ll know that feeding people has never really been about the food.
It’s about saying, “You matter.”
It’s about making room for one more chair at the table.
It’s about slowing down long enough to listen.
It’s about passing love from one generation to the next, one meal at a time.
This cherry pie isn’t famous.
It won’t win ribbons at the county fair.
It isn’t all from scratch.
But it carries fingerprints from women who loved the people God placed around their tables.
That makes it priceless.
Scripture reminds us to “receive one another, just as Christ also received us, to the glory of God” (Romans 15:7, NKJV). Looking back, I think Grandma had been living that verse long before I ever knew where to find it.
This cherry pie recipe belongs to my daughter now.
I think Grandma Simmons would smile knowing that.
Ashlyn’s Cherry Pie
