Yellow apple, mild but pleasant. I think I'd like it better if the flavor more intense and/or sweeter, and a little crisper would also be nice. Cattitude said the flavor reminded him of a banana, and Adrian agreed, strongly enough that she suspects they crossed a Golden Delicious apple with a banana.
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Three things: heat, the Boston city council election and the ballot drop box, and the farmers market
The building heat is broken, and it was cold last night. I sent in a maintenance request after breakfast this morning, and a couple of hours later a maintenance person knocked and told us that there was a problem with the boiler, and they had sent for someone to fix it.
A few hours after that, someone knocked to tell us that the problem wouldn't be fixed at least until tomorrow morning, and offered to lend us space heaters. At my suggestion,![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
adrian_turtle accepted two (they offered three, "one for each bedroom"). We had by then gotten out the two space heaters we own, and hadn't used (or needed) since we moved in. We have mostly been sitting in the study, when not doing things in the kitchen (cooking, making tea, washing the dishes from lunch) or exercising: cattitude did some VR gaming with Patricia, and I've done three sets of PT exercises.
I took the trolley to Copley Square today, in order to drop off my absentee ballot for the city council election. When I got there I discovered that the drop box was closed for Halloween. The sign was ambiguous, so I went into the library and asked the information person whether she knew whether the drop box would be available later, but they hadn't told her. So I called 311, and learned that the boxes will be usable again from tomorrow around noon through Election Day, so I will go back sometime in the next few days (or ask Cattitude or Adrian to do so).
While I was in Copley Square I went to the farmers market -- the chance to do that is why I decided to drop off my ballot today. I got a loaf of bread and a slice of a "chocolate loaf" from Hi-Rise Bakery, plus three Macoun apples from one vendor and an unexpected small box of raspberries from another. Those three apples were the only unbruised and unblemished apples in a half-full box; it has not been a good year for local apples, and the Macouns have been small, but tasty.
ETA: This election is for city council, four at-large seats and one for each district. Both the candidates for the district seat seem reasonable; I voted for the challenger (Jacob deBlecourt) rather than the incumbent. For the at-large seats (eight candidates for four seats) I eliminated the two anti-vax candidates quickly; one is also an insurrectionist. That left six people, which came down to three I like and one who seems OK. In the end I voted for Louijeune, Mejia, and Santana, the three I was sure of, and Murphy as my fourth vote, because I really wanted to vote against Vitale and Nelson (they're the anti-vaxers) and Nee-Walsh after she said that Black Lives Matter had set the cause of Civil Rights back by fifty years.
The building heat is broken, and it was cold last night. I sent in a maintenance request after breakfast this morning, and a couple of hours later a maintenance person knocked and told us that there was a problem with the boiler, and they had sent for someone to fix it.
A few hours after that, someone knocked to tell us that the problem wouldn't be fixed at least until tomorrow morning, and offered to lend us space heaters. At my suggestion,
adrian_turtle accepted two (they offered three, "one for each bedroom"). We had by then gotten out the two space heaters we own, and hadn't used (or needed) since we moved in. We have mostly been sitting in the study, when not doing things in the kitchen (cooking, making tea, washing the dishes from lunch) or exercising: cattitude did some VR gaming with Patricia, and I've done three sets of PT exercises.I took the trolley to Copley Square today, in order to drop off my absentee ballot for the city council election. When I got there I discovered that the drop box was closed for Halloween. The sign was ambiguous, so I went into the library and asked the information person whether she knew whether the drop box would be available later, but they hadn't told her. So I called 311, and learned that the boxes will be usable again from tomorrow around noon through Election Day, so I will go back sometime in the next few days (or ask Cattitude or Adrian to do so).
While I was in Copley Square I went to the farmers market -- the chance to do that is why I decided to drop off my ballot today. I got a loaf of bread and a slice of a "chocolate loaf" from Hi-Rise Bakery, plus three Macoun apples from one vendor and an unexpected small box of raspberries from another. Those three apples were the only unbruised and unblemished apples in a half-full box; it has not been a good year for local apples, and the Macouns have been small, but tasty.
ETA: This election is for city council, four at-large seats and one for each district. Both the candidates for the district seat seem reasonable; I voted for the challenger (Jacob deBlecourt) rather than the incumbent. For the at-large seats (eight candidates for four seats) I eliminated the two anti-vax candidates quickly; one is also an insurrectionist. That left six people, which came down to three I like and one who seems OK. In the end I voted for Louijeune, Mejia, and Santana, the three I was sure of, and Murphy as my fourth vote, because I really wanted to vote against Vitale and Nelson (they're the anti-vaxers) and Nee-Walsh after she said that Black Lives Matter had set the cause of Civil Rights back by fifty years.
This apple is called either "Golden blush" (Adrian's memory of the sign at the farmers markets) or "blushing golden"; orangepippin.com isn't working properly right now.Not sure of the name, ask Adrian when she's done teaching:
farmers market apple, skin is mostly yellow. Pleasant, a bit sweet, soft as in not crisp, but not mushy. I just ate and enjoyed the last one from our recent farmers market purchase. Another worked well in a frittata with cooked sweet potato yesterday.
farmers market apple, skin is mostly yellow. Pleasant, a bit sweet, soft as in not crisp, but not mushy. I just ate and enjoyed the last one from our recent farmers market purchase. Another worked well in a frittata with cooked sweet potato yesterday.
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We are at the stage of autumn where I am buying Too Many Apples, because I'm still excited and grabbing varieties that may not be there next week, even while Andy points out that we have apples at home, two different kinds. Today I got Zestars; what we already had was a few Elstar and one Ashmead's kernel. I grabbed and paid for the Zestar apples at the first stall that had them, before we got to the stall with the most kinds of apple: I counted, and they had 14 varieties, but not Zestar. That 14 included other apple varieties I like, and may buy some of next week or the week after. (OK, 14 and a half, counting crab apples as the half.)
That was at Central Square Cambridge, where we also bought plums, grapes, a lettuce, a few of the little Diva cucumbers, and some tomatoes, plus a tuna steak and a loaf of bread (Hi-Rise Bakery's extremely crust Luce).
That was at Central Square Cambridge, where we also bought plums, grapes, a lettuce, a few of the little Diva cucumbers, and some tomatoes, plus a tuna steak and a loaf of bread (Hi-Rise Bakery's extremely crust Luce).
I had to get (more) blood drawn for tests, and after that I went to the farmers market. I came home with plums, the big oval Italian kind; Elstar apples; Vanessa grapes; raspberries; and diva cucumbers.
I am very pleased with my haul, in part because I thought I'd missed the season for those plums and maybe for that kind of apple. I had been picking out Macouns when I saw the box of Elstar apples. I put the Macouns back in their bin because I'm confident of being able to get those in a week or three, and the Elstar season is short.
There's also a small tomato in a bowl on the counter, but I grew that myself.
I am very pleased with my haul, in part because I thought I'd missed the season for those plums and maybe for that kind of apple. I had been picking out Macouns when I saw the box of Elstar apples. I put the Macouns back in their bin because I'm confident of being able to get those in a week or three, and the Elstar season is short.
There's also a small tomato in a bowl on the counter, but I grew that myself.
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Now that I'm partly vaccinated, adrian_turtle and I are aiming to see each other weekly instead of fortnightly.
So, I was at her place last night, where she kindly made me something with mushrooms for supper last night. Today we woke up a little early, then got confused by Daylight Saving Time and wound up eating lunch a little early by the clock, more than a little by our body clocks.
I left her place a little before 2, and got to Harvard Square in time for the farmers market. I got mcintosh apples—seven, becausecattitude and I had finished last weekend's four by Thursday—and a box of carrot and chick pea ravioli. It snowed briefly, while I was walking from the bus stop to the market, and then cleared up. So, March in New England.
adrian_turtle and I are aiming to see each other weekly instead of fortnightly.So, I was at her place last night, where she kindly made me something with mushrooms for supper last night. Today we woke up a little early, then got confused by Daylight Saving Time and wound up eating lunch a little early by the clock, more than a little by our body clocks.
I left her place a little before 2, and got to Harvard Square in time for the farmers market. I got mcintosh apples—seven, because
cattitude and I had finished last weekend's four by Thursday—and a box of carrot and chick pea ravioli. It snowed briefly, while I was walking from the bus stop to the market, and then cleared up. So, March in New England.Tags:
The grocery I was in today had organic Tsugaru apples on sale for 99 cents/pound. I'd never heard of this variety, so googled (to make sure it wasn't another name for one I knew), Wikipedia told me that it's a cross between Golden Delicious and a Japanese variety, and compared it to Honeycrisp. I bought two, mostly out of curiosity.
Whoever compared this to Honeycrisp must have gotten a better (individual) apple than I have in front of me, which I'm not going to bother to finish. It's a little juicy, not crisp, and the flavor is off somehow; I don't think it's actually musty, but it doesn't taste apple-y either. Ah, well, I have some Hudson's Golden Gem apples, and most of a bag of Moroccan clementines, in the fridge.
Whoever compared this to Honeycrisp must have gotten a better (individual) apple than I have in front of me, which I'm not going to bother to finish. It's a little juicy, not crisp, and the flavor is off somehow; I don't think it's actually musty, but it doesn't taste apple-y either. Ah, well, I have some Hudson's Golden Gem apples, and most of a bag of Moroccan clementines, in the fridge.
Via miss_s_b, this week's Friday 5 questions are all about apples. So:
1. Have you ever bobbed for apples?
Yes, a long time ago, and I didn't enjoy it; it was awkward and seemed pointless.
2. Do you like regular or hard apple cider?
Yes, both: I like regular [unfiltered, pressed apple juice] when it's made from interesting apples, which alas isn't always; unpasteurized has more flavor, but is hard to get, and tends to start fermenting if we don't finish it quickly. Despite liking hard cider (now and again, but it's one of the few alcoholic beverages I do sometimes like), I don't like regular cider that has fermented enough to be noticeably alcoholic.
3. Do you have a special type of apple that you prefer over others?
Several, which is why this journal has a couple of dozen posts tagged "apple." Favorites include Macoun, Macintosh, and Esopus Spitzenberg, and I've recently become fond of Hudson's Golden Gem (at least last year, they were keeping well and I was buying them at the Somerville Winter Farmers Market in January and February) and Elstar. For supermarket apples, Granny Smith for cooking; Gala is a good and easy-to-find eating apple. (Macintosh seems to be more regional, but it's the region I live in.)
4. Have you ever made baked apples?
Yes; I should do so again, maybe core them and put butter and cinnamon inside.
5. Who is the apple of your eye?
There's nobody I think of in those terms, not even my beloveds. I think of that as more of a proud or doting parent or grandparent's term, as well as somewhat old-fashioned.
miss_s_b, this week's Friday 5 questions are all about apples. So:1. Have you ever bobbed for apples?
Yes, a long time ago, and I didn't enjoy it; it was awkward and seemed pointless.
2. Do you like regular or hard apple cider?
Yes, both: I like regular [unfiltered, pressed apple juice] when it's made from interesting apples, which alas isn't always; unpasteurized has more flavor, but is hard to get, and tends to start fermenting if we don't finish it quickly. Despite liking hard cider (now and again, but it's one of the few alcoholic beverages I do sometimes like), I don't like regular cider that has fermented enough to be noticeably alcoholic.
3. Do you have a special type of apple that you prefer over others?
Several, which is why this journal has a couple of dozen posts tagged "apple." Favorites include Macoun, Macintosh, and Esopus Spitzenberg, and I've recently become fond of Hudson's Golden Gem (at least last year, they were keeping well and I was buying them at the Somerville Winter Farmers Market in January and February) and Elstar. For supermarket apples, Granny Smith for cooking; Gala is a good and easy-to-find eating apple. (Macintosh seems to be more regional, but it's the region I live in.)
4. Have you ever made baked apples?
Yes; I should do so again, maybe core them and put butter and cinnamon inside.
5. Who is the apple of your eye?
There's nobody I think of in those terms, not even my beloveds. I think of that as more of a proud or doting parent or grandparent's term, as well as somewhat old-fashioned.
These are old notes that I had in Evernote instead of on DW:
Junami apples are a variety I tried in Bellevue (bought in early December, but I didn't note the year). They're not bad. The man at QFC [supermarket] said it was like a Gala or Honeycrisp but not as sweet; a good Gala is juicier and a bit more flavorful. I didn't note where these were from, and it might be worth trying outside Washington, given that the soil or climate here produces more flavorful apples.
Pazzaz apple is "a little tart but had Delicious nature," which I suspect I meant as an unfavorable comment on texture.
Williams pride apples have some flavor and are crisp 8/11/16. That's an early season Massachusetts apple.
I'm transcribing these mostly so I can include them in my index of apple posts, for next year.
Junami apples are a variety I tried in Bellevue (bought in early December, but I didn't note the year). They're not bad. The man at QFC [supermarket] said it was like a Gala or Honeycrisp but not as sweet; a good Gala is juicier and a bit more flavorful. I didn't note where these were from, and it might be worth trying outside Washington, given that the soil or climate here produces more flavorful apples.
Pazzaz apple is "a little tart but had Delicious nature," which I suspect I meant as an unfavorable comment on texture.
Williams pride apples have some flavor and are crisp 8/11/16. That's an early season Massachusetts apple.
I'm transcribing these mostly so I can include them in my index of apple posts, for next year.
This is mostly for my own reference, so I don't have to keep clicking on the "apple" tag to find out if I've tried/posted about an apple variety.
- A more general and reflective post about apples, written for minoanmiss
- Ambrosia: still crisp when bought in March, but almost no flavor
- Ashmead's kernel: a good heirloom apple: crisp, juicy, nice balance of sweet and tart
- Blushing golden: a good heirloom apple: crisp, juicy, nice balance of sweet and tart
- Cripp's pink: like Gala but not as tasty
- Dandee Mac: pretty good for an early-season apple
- Elstar: a good, crisp early apple
- Esopus Spitzenburg: a very nice heirloom apple, with an unfortunately brief season
- Evercrisp: Somewhat crisp but lacking in flavor, and doesn't keep as well as the name suggests.
- Garnet Spy aka NY428: We liked this, it's crisp and tasty.
- Honeycrisp : crisp, sweet, tasty
- Hudson's Golden Gem: a mild-flavored late season apple with a texture I like
- "J" Mac: early-season, somewhat astringent, crisp
- Jonathan: I took one bite and spat it out, because it was sour. Try again some year?
- Junami: A mild apple I tried in Washington
- Kendall: crisp but little flavor, not very juicy
- Keepsake: almost no flavor
- Kiku: new variety from New Zealand, tasty but not a strong flavor
- Lodi: crisp, sour early apple
- Milton: juicy, tasty, but soft
- Molly Sheepnose: bland early apple
- NY543
- NY652: probably my favorite early apple
- Pacific rose: pretty, juicy, mild flavor
- Pazzaz: a little tart, had the Delicious nature
- Pink-a-boo: distinctly pink flesh, but very little flavor or sweetness
- Pomme gris: Sourer than I like, and not very juicy or interesting
- Pristine: another boring early-season apple.
- Puritan: bland early-season apple
- Ribston pippin: tasty, but not as sweet or as juicy as a good Macintosh or Gala
- Roxbury russet: I liked this: very apple-y.
- Sansa: mild and pleasant, tastes a bit like a banana
- Senshu: OK, nothing special
- Shamrock: another average apple: mild flavor but what's there is nice
- Sonya: crunchy, tart, juicy, flavor could be stronger
- Spartan: crisp but bland
- Spencer: an average apple
- Tsugaru: bland and tasted not quite right.
- Vista Bella: this review seems to be from a particularly good year for this variety
- Williams pride: A crisp early season apple with some flavor
- Westfield seek-no-further: pleasant, mild flavor, very crisp
- Wickson: small, mild but pleasant flavor.
- Zestar: an early-season apple I happily bought more of while the market had them this year
When I got back from Boston, I posted about eating and enjoying apples, and how pleased ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
cattitude was when I brought a couple back to Bellevue for him.
The delightfulbrowngirl commented, offering to send me some more apples. My answer was "yes, please," and this afternoon I picked up a package from the building management office. Walking back, I smelled the apples through the cardboard box. So, for an afternoon snack, I ate a Macoun apple, and Cattitude ate what might have been a Brock, and there was much rejoicing. I put the other four apples in the fridge, to keep crisp and because I like chilled apples: it looks as though we have three more Macouns and a Macintosh.
cattitude was when I brought a couple back to Bellevue for him.The delightful
browngirl commented, offering to send me some more apples. My answer was "yes, please," and this afternoon I picked up a package from the building management office. Walking back, I smelled the apples through the cardboard box. So, for an afternoon snack, I ate a Macoun apple, and Cattitude ate what might have been a Brock, and there was much rejoicing. I put the other four apples in the fridge, to keep crisp and because I like chilled apples: it looks as though we have three more Macouns and a Macintosh.browngirl asked me to write about apples. Since this is supposed to be somewhat personal, I’m not going to take us all to Kazakhstan for the history of apple cultivation, or provide a nutritional analysis—though I am amused at the recent British advice that everyone over fifty should add an apple a day to their current diet, because on the population/epidemiological level it will save lives and have fewer side effects than statins. There doesn’t seem to be anything special about apples compared to oranges or pears or blueberries; “apple” is synecdoche for fruit, a role it’s played for a very long time.I grew up eating apples the way a lot of kids did, it was something my parents handed me now and then as a snack or dessert, either whole or in applesauce. Once in a while we got my grandmother’s homemade applesauce, pink because she left the skins on while she was cooking it down. We’d go visit, and she would send us home with a prune juice jar full of applesauce, which I liked a lot. I think there was occasional Mott’s applesauce as well, but that wasn’t a big deal—it’s like getting chicken soup from a can, which is food, when once in a while you get the homemade stuff.
I was well into adult life before I started thinking about kinds of apples. I think it was mostly Macintosh and the occasional yellow or red delicious when I was growing up, because those were the default New York area apples. I added Granny Smith for cooking when I started using apples for cooking, and Gala after I tried a few that I got at Byerly’s after a Minneapolis con. (I was surprised to discover recently that people have been raising Gala apples since the 1920s; it apparently took a while for New Zealand to start shipping them to the United States north, and then for American farmers to start growing them.)
Somewhere along the line I noticed the variety of apples at the Greenmarket (the NYC-area farmers’ markets, run by an organization that makes sure we’re getting only local produce). The market in my old neighborhood is small, but two of the farms that come to it are orchards. One of those orchards grows a lot of varieties of apple, old and new; there will be more kinds in April than the supermarket used to have during the harvest season, and a dozen or fifteen varieties in September and October.
We started trying different kinds of apple partly because they were there: it’s late August, and along with the remains of the stored Macintosh and such, there’s something I never heard of, but the sign says “new crop.” Apples keep in nitrogen, more or less, but they’re not going to taste as good after several months. Somewhere along the line, I realized that my memory wasn’t up to keeping track of all of this. I can remember that I like Macouns and don’t care for Red Delicious; that doesn’t mean I’ll remember that I liked NY652, or was it 562, and was unimpressed with NY428. (Cornell University has produced a lot of apple varieties; some of them got onto the market—for sale to people with apple orchards—without ever getting names other than those numbers. )
It’s a little weird writing this in Washington, where I’m having to relearn most of this. It’s not just that the market here has varieties I’d never heard of, instead of the Macouns and Macintoshes I’m fond of (I never expected to find Esopus Spitzenberg, that heirloom variety is apparently susceptible to every known apple disease). It’s that climate makes a difference, not just in whether something will grow, but in what it will taste like. I like New Zealand or Hudson Valley Galas better than Washington Galas, for example, but Honeycrisps grown here are a lot better than the ones that turned up in New York.
The farmer’s market near me doesn’t have as many apple varieties as I was accustomed to—but there’s a tomato farmer who labels all the varieties, so I can pick “Mortgage lifter” or “Paul Robeson” instead of just “heirloom tomato.” Someone else was identifying their nectarines, and having samples of three different kinds so I could decide which I liked best.
There are a few farmer’s market apples left in my refrigerator, which have probably been sitting too long, given that the last market was at the end of November. After that, it’ll be Safeway or Uwajimaya. (Trader Joe’s and the Pike Place Market each have their virtues, but neither is big on varietal apples.)
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