MCC Sale

When did you last buy a jar of apple butter that was still warm? I'll give you a minute to think.

Exactly. Me neither.

But Friday night at the MCC sale I was able to buy a pint jar that was still warm from the kettle. It was $6, and that seems like a bargain to me.

This is Grandpa Kauffman's recipe and it has been offered at the MCC sale in Hutchinson for about 20 years. But there has been a five year gap, and this is their first year back. Supplies were limited, so I wanted to make sure I put my hands on some. They made two kettles, starting at about 5:30 Friday morning. By 11 a.m. they had finished the cooking and were ready to pack it. Two kettles made 512 pints. Although I didn't go back to the sale today, I'm sure they probably sold out.



I try to never miss the MCC (Mennonite Central Committee) Sale. It raises money for hunger relief around the world. These events happen around the country and this is a large one.

It's almost like travelling into another country. It's certainly another culture. I know "Mennonite" in some places is kind of a scary thing, but that's not the case here. The Mennonite congregations are full of wonderful people as far as I can tell.

I was so glad they had good weather - as opposed to last year when there was snow.



One of the big events is the quilt auction. They have tons and tons of quilts of all sorts. They're all on display for people to look at before the auction.






They also have the "sit and sew" area where people can sit and quilt, and the rest of us who don't know how to do it can watch and learn.



These ladies were visiting while they sewed.



I, of course, had already stopped by my very favorite display, "Quilter's Corner," where they sell donated items - from vintage fabric to quilt tops to doilies. I will try to take some photos of the huge stack of goodies I bought, but you can get a sense of them by this photo of Greg and Cleta. Greg had to hold my box while I went to take photos of the quilts.



The sack on top is his stuff, but you can see my doilies peeking out of the corner of the box. I ran into Cleta and her husband, Tom, when I was headed to take pix. When I came back they were visiting with Greg.

There are also other interesting little bits at the MCC sale, and lots of food. We ate at the German buffet, of course, and then started sight seeing.

Right next to the apple butter was the pysanky egg display. I must refer you to Greg's piece from last year for more details about the process. As usual, I leave the details to him.





The young lady showed me these two eggs. The one on the right is a wooden one. Her mom, Janet Regier, copied the design onto a real egg. The darker color on the wooden one is because of how it's done. The main color is applied and then the other things are done on top of it, giving them all a muddy look. The egg done by Regier has just one color on each space on the egg, so the colors are all more distinct.






The MCC sale is one of my favorite events in Hutchinson. I am always surprised more people don't go and enjoy it, but I rarely run into anyone I know there.

Last night I did see Jay and Lois Huber and it was great to say hello to them. I worked with Jay for many years, we even shared an office for a while, and always really liked him. So, it was good to bump into them.

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