Adam's Apples

Pronounced "ah-kah-nay." This large apple is a very pretty bright red over yellow, slightly conical and slightly ribbed. It is decorated with irregular small light lenticels. Note that my sample was waxed, as I bought it in a supermarket while visiting Seattle. Perhaps for that reason, the fruit had no aroma at all. Akane's dense white flesh was moderately yielding and had a good balance of sweet and tart and generally light and generic flavors but also a suggestion of a vinous quality and hints of kiwi and, towards the finish, white wine. This is a chewy apple with a chewy peel, filling and not super juicy.

Luscious and strange, this apple had me at first bite. Everything about Empress is a little uncommon. Take a look at the photo and mentally remove the stem. A bit topsy turvy, don't you think? Many apples have ribs that terminate in little bumps or chins, but usually at the base, not at the crown. Many taper towards the bottom; this one is plum-shaped. Not every Empress is tapered at the top, but the ones I saw had rib bumps more prominent at the stem than the bottom. 

The Gravenstein Apple Fair has its one hundredth anniversary today and tomorrow in Sebastopol, California . Congratulations, and eat a Gravenstein for me!

Though I am not a fan, I could not resist buying one of these organic Chilean Red Delicious (!) apples just so you could see what she looks like. Lopsided, flamboyant, even a little scarred, this Delicious has slipped through the bars of her shiny red cage to show a glimpse of her origins as heirloom Hawkeye . (As usual, click on the photo for a close-up.) Sad to report, though, that this reversion is only skin deep. To be sure, this is a "good" Red Delicious inside, not mealy as they all so often can be, but the taste and texture were just as generic and unmemorable as those of the glossy red variety .

Two years ago, Red Apple Farm sold me some apples that I found exceptional. I thought they were Lodi apples because the grower said so. This year, it turns out, those apples were really Yellow Transparents. So of course last Tuesday I let Red Apple sell me some more apples called Lodi, and of course I think that's really really what they are this time. Okay, I see the pattern. But I'm getting fed. Pass the fruit. These apples are on the large end of small, a delicate yellow-green that is mostly yellow on the sunward side, where there is sometimes a hint of pink.

The apple season started early in July along with dire predictions of a McIntosh harvest in mid-August. The idea of a "normal" harvest date is elusive, but Lodi was available the week of July 14, more than two weeks premature. This harvest follows a warm spring with unusually early blossoming --"not a little bit weird, it's high weird," as one grower said. However, the early Lodi apples proved unripe--picked prematurely. Other varieties, though early, seem to be so by about a week, not a fortnight. I personally saw six local varieties for sale in July: Vista Bella , Lodi, Paula Red , Jersey Mac (and Early Mac, as near the same thing as no never mind), Yellow Transparent , and Zestar . In a normal year, if there is such a thing, most of these would not be available until early August. A seasonal import from Argentina, Autumn Greeting , also made a brief appearance in mid July, though these