Adam's Apples

The summer harvest parade is well under way by mid August, with quality local varieties such as Williams Pride, Gingergold , and Gravenstein available fresh at farmers market. So there was some irony in finding Diva in supermarkets last week, off the boat (and out of storage) from the spring harvest in New Zealand.

Today we weigh two modern varieties in the shadow, or perhaps the light, of a third apple that isn't here: a hundred-sixty-plus-year-old Russian variety called  Yellow Transparent .