Adam's Apples

I neglected to store my Suncrisps properly, and they wrinkled up. Inside however the meat of the apple was still sound, and filed with intense flavors of caramel and brown sugar.

A reader provided this photo of an ice-encrusted Cortland apple in Harvard, Massachusetts, yesterday.

I thought my previous review would be the last for 2017, but happily a reader from Washington State decided to send SugarBee my way. Thank you, John! The moment I unpacked these, something said " Honeycrisp " to me. It isn't size: these are large but not nearly as big as the H bomb. Nor is it shape. I think its the orange tinged blush, which also has shimmery quality, at least in artificial light. That is Hcrisp-esque. Either that, or I am just sensitive lately about Honeycrisp's outsized influence on the apple world, and was unconsciously triggered by the S word in SB's name. In any case, my gut reaction proved true, see below.

I am a sucker for this kind of look, a mix of colors layered provocatively. Here russet tops the reddish orange blush, but on other samples the underlying yellow is also visible and sections of the blush are an almost peachy orange red. This interplay of colors on Kidds Orange Red is further enlivened—or muddled—by large indistinct lentical dots smeared like the markings on an animal's pelt.

I didn't think I'd get a crack at EverCrisp, a ballyhooed Honeycrisp successor, for several more years. But today I have two.

Left to right: Blushing Golden, Golden Russet, Esopus Spitzenberg It's December, and time to open up the chest of pirate booty and start eating those keeper apples you put down against the inevitable coming of winter.

Visually the most interesting thing about Wagener is the tentative, almost milky red blush, which washes in varying patches over a spring green that is practically yellow. I don't mean that it is terribly beautiful, but it is surprisingly complex. The blush is also a bit streaky in some places, and there are small light lenticel  dots. The peel has a semigloss sheen. Click on the photo if you'd like to look closer.