To all who celebrate the new year, best wishes for a Happy and Healthy New Year.

Before holidays, and at other times as the spirit moves us, Flo and I make apple sauce. Natural, no artificial ingredients -- the perfect comfort food.

I do the prep work. The coring, peeling and chopping. If they’re not prepped right, the apple sauce will not be right. Flo does the “cooking”. I help with mashing. All in all, it's a rewarding joint effort. We’ve never had a bad batch.

The other night, I cored, peeled and chopped about two dozen apples. We filled the big pot. As the pot simmered, I went upstairs and enjoyed the fragrance of our efforts. I fell asleep.

In the morning, I went down to the kitchen to make coffee. I opened the refrigerator, expecting to see a big Tupperware container with the rewards of last night’s efforts. I thought of sneaking a spoonful. There it was on the middle shelf. A small Tupperware, indeed, very small, almost tiny. I looked around inside the refrigerator. Except for the small container, no apple sauce. Certainly not enough for our expected dinner guests. Not enough for a sneak spoonful.

I was descending into a panic when rational thought slowly intervened. It had to be somewhere. And then I found it, the big container, worthy of 24 apples, hiding in the vegetable drawer behind the lettuce.

The case of the missing apple sauce -- solved!