farmers' market: apples!

[heresluck]

I went to the big Saturday market this morning intending to get apples. Of course I came home with a lot of things that weren't apples: an exceptionally beautiful yellow pepper and a very nice red pepper, sturdy green beans (the kind that can handle being curried), a big head of garlic, a pint of little raspberries (perfect for raspberry muffins

Comments

[cynicalskeptic]

You're extremely lucky to have so many apples at your dispense. It's like, McIntosh, Gravenstein, and Granny Smith here. Gravenstein (sp?) is very good for Apple Pie. *nod*

[heresluck]

Yes, I've had Gravensteins; they're very tasty.

[moireach]

Oh, *apples*. Love love love. I'd love to know how the apple butter experiment turns out, particularly if you end up with recommendations for what kind of apple is good (or not) to use in it.

[heresluck]

I'm going on the assumption that whatever apples make good sauce will make good apple butter, since applesauce is the key ingredient. Yay apples!

[lalouve]

Every year at this time I raise my inquisitive nose and sniff, and find the delight that is ripening apples on a clear fall day. And then I remember why I never bother getting the generic red, generic yellow, and generic green apples sold in my supermarket: I'm waiting for apple season.
When I was a child, we had a yearly apple market in my town, where the apples were all the kinds anyone cared to grow. I used to get a Gravensteiner.

[kassrachel]

Mmm, applesauce.

A group of my friends here usually does a grand tribal applesaucing in mid- or late October: we start with several bushels of drop apples (usually Cortlands or Jonamacs, that's what most folks grow around here) and end the day with around 180 quarts of applesauce (some sugared, some sugarfree) which we divvy up and eat all winter. I love being able to eat potato pancakes at Chanukah topped with our own applesauce. This is the kind of thing my family doesn't do, so it's pleasing to me that I've grown into someone who cans and preserves. Living in New England makes a difference, too -- in Texas where I grew up fruits don't have "seasons" in quite the same way. I mean, they do, but it's not as dramatic as it is here, where snow blankets the ground for a good chunk of the year.

Also, I love the names of the apples you list. As I seem to recall loving the names of peaches in your journal some weeks back when it was peach season. I want to write something using all of these great names!