Adam's Apples

Some apples yet cling to the bare branches in the low late November light.

When I published my review of Belle de Boskoop in 2011, a reader told me ,  ❝ My samples look quite different.... Does yours have the 3 pronounced ribs on it? ❞  The implication (delivered diplomatically) was, are you sure you got this right, dude? When I published my review of Alexander earlier this year, another reader told me , Looks like Belle de Boskoop to me, and the description is consistent with my experience with that variety. Your review of Boskoop displays an apple inconsistent with my experience in both appearance and qualities.

The end of the season is nigh at the Davis Square farmers market earlier today.  ¶  With just a week to go before the markets' seasonal end, there are fewer farmers with less fruit and less time.  ¶  Deals can be had.

I have two of these pretty red apples today, large and medium.  ¶  But note "today" is mid October, as I saved one of them to eat a bit later in the season.  ¶  The smaller is a bit asymmetrical from some accident of growth, but both are ribbed and wear constellations of large light lenticel dots and a very faint light bloom of excess natural wax.  ¶  Rub that off and the apple has a semigloss shine. (Always wash an apple before eating, not to remove the harmless bloom but because you don't know where it has been.)

What do you get if you cross a McIntosh with a Golden Delicious?  ¶  There are many examples of that. Today we are comparing two apples: Spencer (L) and Brock.  ¶  Both are " Mcintosh x Golden Delicious ": grown from the seed of a Mac pollinated by Golden D.

There are only a few more weeks left until Thanksgiving and the end of the outdoor markets.  (Photo:  These big red Cortlands were for sale at the Davis Square, Somerville (Massachusetts) farmers market earlier today. )  The weather has turned brisk, as it does in November, and the sun is low in the sky during those times when it is up at all.

On a cheerful Wednesday in mid October, a friend and I took a detour on our way to farmers market and visited Baldwin Common in Wilmington, Massachusetts. There we paid our respects to the man who popularized the Baldwin apple.  ¶  Baldwin is a great apple , once the most celebrated in New England and perhaps America.  ¶  They are ripe in mid October. A farmer at our weekly market grows them.

I've got two Allington apples today: one large, the other slightly smaller. They are classically shaped, long stemmed and nearly unribbed.  ¶  The apples wear a semigloss skin of yellow that is almost a spring green, with a partial red blush that comprises darker red steaks and specks in an orange wash.  ¶  There is some russet in the mix around the stem well, but the kind of textured, subdued olive-toned red you can see in my photos is mostly just the thin blush, with its streaks and spots, spread over the underlying green-tinged yellow.

Darkness falls in America early this month as we set our clocks back an hour for Daylight Savings Time.  (Photo:  Electric lighting illuminates the apples at the Davis Square farmers market in Somerville, Massachusetts, earlier today. )  Night was falling at 5 pm at farmers market in Davis Square (Somerville, Massachusetts) today. You could have bought 14 different kinds of apples there.

The sticker of the day graces a lovely Stayman Winesap .  ¶  See closing times at the polls for every American state and territory.

My Sops of Wine are pretty, medium-sized apples with a streaky red blush over yellow.  ¶  They are oblate, modestly ribbed, and decorated with tiny light-tan lenticel dots .  ¶  I reviewed Sops of Wine in 2013, then had  another bite , not as good, just two years ago.