Adam's Apples

Crisp and light Pazazz might be a better-balanced Honeycrisp , enjoying similar crunch but without the extreme sugar hit that some find cloying. New varieties of apples are slow to make it to New England and when they do first appear their availability is limited and they are expensive. In a few years Pazazz will probably come down in price and be sold in supermarkets. But I do not mind paying more to try a new apple, especially at the end of February.

If only we could store electricity, we wouldn't waste so much of it or want to burn so much coal and oil and gas for times when the sun doesn't shine and the wind doesn't blow. Now come five scientists who propose developing "cheap and powerful carbon-based active materials for Na-ion batteries." From apples.

They're available now. But are they any good? Lady Alice made her New England debut in the spring of 2010, leaving a very favorable impression. I awarded her two stars ("worth seeking") for great texture and rich and unusual flavors. That this variety needed to sit until March or April to reach her peak was a feature, not a bug; having something this good to bite at that time of year was a welcome treat amid the tired supermarket standards. Starting in 2011, reports began to trickle in here of this variety for sale in February. Or, I should perhaps say, complaints: blandness, bitterness, a "chemical taste," and general dissatisfaction.

Since I started rating apples in 2012, I’ve set aside the start of February to assess varieties tasted during the previous year. This just works better for me than rating the apples as I go. D'Arcy Spice is worth seeking. Seventeen of the twenty-two apples I reviewed in 2015 are getting stars this year. In my qualitative rating scheme, one star ( * ) simply denotes an apple that is “worth choosing.” For 2015 welcome Cornish Aromatic , Epicure , Eureka Canyon , Kanzi , Katherine , Koru , Peace Garden , Pink Parfait , Red Astrakhan , Rockit , Spymac , Suntan , Vanilla Pippin , Waltana , and Williams .