Apple Orchard Granola: Full of Memories, Dolly Parton, Indiana and SMU

Some flavors are created in a kitchen. Others seem to carry a whole lifetime inside them.

Our APPLE ORCHARD GRANOLA is a little bit of both.

We were all saddened to hear about the passing of Dolly Parton this past week. I’ve always related to the way Dolly talked about songwriting. So many of her songs came from her own life: people she knew, places she loved, things that made her laugh, and memories she carried for years.

I certainly wouldn’t put making granola in the same league as writing “Coat of Many Colors,” but I understand the concept. The older I get, the more I realize that many of the things we create are simply little pieces of our lives coming together. Just like that coat, we are all a patchwork of what life brings to us.

And that is exactly what happened with APPLE ORCHARD GRANOLA.

It Started in Maine

Last year, I traveled to Maine to visit my daughter, and one of the highlights was a trip to Bailey’s Apple Orchard in Whitefield.

There is something magical about standing among rows of apple trees, picking one yourself, and eating it right there. We must have tasted a dozen varieties, laughing our way through the orchard and declaring each new apple the best one yet. It was one of those simple afternoons with my daughter that I know I’ll remember for a very long time.

Eventually, we settled on Cortlands.

They were wonderful. Sweet, tart, crunchy and delicious.

Apparently, simply remembering them wasn’t enough.

When I flew home to Dallas, I had apples tucked into practically every available corner of my luggage, including inside the arms of my sweaters and tucked into my clean socks for cushioning. 

The airport security guy gave me a few sideways glances as he worked his way through all those apple-filled socks and sweaters.

Who travels home from vacation with that many apples?

Me, apparently.

I wanted everyone at White Rock Granola, especially our chef, to taste them. When I discover an ingredient I love, my first thought is usually, “You have GOT to taste this, and we need to make a granola with it.”

Meanwhile, Back in Texas…

At almost exactly the same time, SMU approached us about creating a low-allergen, fall-inspired granola for the football team.

Chef Katie wanted something the students would really enjoy, with a special autumn twist that would work well in parfaits and help fuel long days of classes, practices, workouts, and games.

Suddenly, all these ideas were coming together:

Fall. Football. Apples. Maine. That amazing day in the orchard.

And then another part of my life worked its way into the story.

Once a Hoosier, Always a Little Bit of a Hoosier

I spent part of my childhood in Harrisonburg, Virginia, and later in Connersville, Indiana, before our family moved to Texas. Some of my warmest memories come from those years.

Virginia was my first real exposure to rural life and bluegrass music. That carried over when my dad took a job with Philco-Ford and moved our whole family to Connersville. Just outside of town was a bluegrass barn — I believe it is still there today — where you could hear the kind of traditional country and bluegrass music that artists like Dolly Parton helped keep alive for generations.

I’m the youngest of five children, and some of my favorite days were spent at the Devinney farm. Their family had what seemed to me like a castle full of kids, and when you combined their bunch with ours and some of the other nearby families, there was never any shortage of noise, laughter, work, or somebody getting into something.

Harvest time was especially memorable. Families came from all around to help. The men worked in the fields, the kids pitched in wherever we could, and the women, including my own mom, prepared enormous tables covered with homemade food as they sang or hummed those bluegrass tunes together. Those meals are still among my strongest memories of Indiana. Everything somehow tasted better because many hands had worked for it, and everyone sat down and shared it together.

That is why watching the flooding in Indiana this month has been especially difficult for me. When your memories are tied to farms and fields, you don’t just see damaged crops or flooded land. You picture the families behind those images, and you understand how quickly an entire season’s work can be changed by rain, heat, drought, or storms. Then Dolly Parton’s death really struck home. Her own devotion to folks working the land was something that meant a lot to me.

That connection to the land is one of the reasons supporting American farmers feels so personal to the White Rock Granola team. Behind the apples, oats, pecans, and other ingredients are families navigating weather, equipment, labor, rising costs, and countless challenges beyond their control – and many of them we get to know as friends, in addition to being suppliers. At the same time, we know we are part of a much bigger world. Our hope is to support farmers, families, and communities both close to home and far beyond it.

Finding the Right Apple

Once we decided to create an apple granola, we faced another challenge.

Fresh apples are incredible straight from the tree. They aren’t necessarily great inside a bag of granola that needs to stay crunchy for several months.

We wanted real apple flavor without pieces that became too chewy or disappeared into the granola, especially since SMU planned to use it in parfaits.

That’s when our fruit supplier, Hanks Brokerage, came through for us.

They helped us locate American-grown apples that had been freeze-dried to perfection. They were crisp, flavorful, and exactly the texture we needed.

Even better, I learned that those Cortland apples that my daughter and I loved so much are a popular American commercial apple variety, according to Cornell University, so there’s a very good chance that the sweet flavor that inspired APPLE ORCHARD GRANOLA may have found its way into the finished recipe too. 🍏

So our chef went to work – and APPLE ORCHARD GRANOLA was born.

There’s a Story in Every Bag

Maybe that’s why this flavor means more to me than just another recipe.

Perhaps that is the Dolly Parton connection after all.

The best things we create don’t always begin with a marketing meeting or a spreadsheet.

Sometimes they begin with a daughter.

Or a childhood memory.

Or a football team.

Or a farm table.

Or an apple eaten right off the tree.

For us, this time they found their way into a bag of APPLE ORCHARD GRANOLA.

And I think that makes it taste just a little bit better.

- Andrea :)