I need a break.
Dad went to the orchard yesterday and while he was there, he picked up a big bag of Fuji apples for me. It really is a crime that most people will never once in their life have something as delicious as a locally grown apple that was allowed to ripen on the tree, and wasn’t bathed in water for weeks and then waxed beyond recognition before being shipped across country. I washed one of them off last night, bit into it, and juices shot out both sides of my mouth. It was probably one of the best apples I’ve ever had.
There really is no comparison to the stuff you get in a grocery store.
R-Jud
Thank you for reminding me: I need to knock some apples off the tree for next week’s pies.
aimai
We missed apple picking season here but when we go we go to an orchard that runs straight up a hill. You can pick your way all the way to the top and then have a stunning view in four directions all through Sudbury and Stowe MA . The apples are incredible.
aimai
cleek
definitely true.
i’m a bit of an apple snob. and, sadly, i get two good apples a year, if i’m lucky, since i moved to NC. back in NY, we’d do our yearly drive to Granville (Hick’s!) for apple picking and come back with bushels and bushels of perfect apples. our back porch would be full of bags of apples for weeks.
i’ve asked my stepmother how she made all those awesome apple pies i remember from childhood and when i try to duplicate her recipe, i can’t even come close. i’ve concluded that the difference is in store-bought v fresh-picked apples.
jeffreyw
Mmm…apples. We are surrounded by orchards tho there aren’t as many now as when I was a lad. More and more vineyards these days, so there’s that.
jehrler
We have two HoneyCrisp trees and a Harralson (to act as pollinator for the HoneyCrisps) and it is truly amazing to walk out the front door and pull down a fresh HoneyCrisp that has no pesticides and no wax. Sure we lose some to bugs and they aren’t the prettiest but, oh, are they juicy and flavorful!
They are insanely easy trees to grow, all we do is hammer in a couple fertilizer stakes each year and prune every couple years.
I will never again have a house where we are not growing apple trees.
Kristine
I harvested crab apples from one of the trees in my yard for the first time this fall. I thought they would be sour, but they tasted tart, like MacIntoshes. Made enough crab apple-cranberry chutney to last through next summer. Wonderful on chicken and pork.
It thrilled me to no end that I was able to pick apples on my own property. The tree had suffered from rust for years and often didn’t even blossom, but a couple of years of treatment (organic remedy–9% peroxide spray) and it’s baa-ack. I’m loving it.
Violet
The same goes for home grown or locally grown food of any kind. I never really knew how awesome cauliflower was until I grew some after I went to the garden center to get broccoli transplants and they were out. I decided to grow cauliflower on a whim. Best damn stuff I’ve ever had. Melted like butter in my mouth after just a minute or two of steaming. Amazing.
It’s hard to grow apples where I live, but citrus grows well. And during peach season, well, fresh peaches off the tree. Nothing like them. They go off in a few days too, unlike what you get in a store.
jeffreyw
@Kristine:
Mmm…crab apples
Mmm…crab apples
Martin
This earmark debate is pissing me off. They need to be banned, and the limited budgetary savings being bandied about in their defense don’t tell the story at all.
We all know how this works – a bit appropriations bill comes up – a new bomber program. Everyone gets some part of the fucking thing built in their district through earmarking. Let’s even pretend that none of this contributes to increasing the cost of the plane (which is ludicrous). But every time the future appropriation of that bomber comes up, every single member of Congress knows what it brings home. They are no longer voting on that appropriation in good faith because they know it’s money coming home. If the bomber was built entirely in Washington State, there’d be a grand total of 2 senators and no more than 9 representatives voting with a vested interest in this thing. There’s no way those two votes would come down the same way, and everyone knows it.
Earmarks inflate every part of the federal budget – not just the add-on spending that its defenders claim.
Winston Smith
Most of the fruit at the breakfast buffet at my hotel here in Minsk is locally grown — certainly the apples. They aren’t perfect-looking, but they sure are good.
Oh, and I’ve discovered an interesting fact: tomatoes are supposed to have flavor!
ed drone
I once visited a friend in western NY, and we wandered through an orchard that had reverted to nature, so to speak (i.e., it wasn’t ‘kept up’ by anyone). Picking a small, crunchy, tart-sweet, who-knows-what-variety apple and eating it while hiking is damned near heaven. In fact, it’s probably a doorway to paradise, if we but knew it.
Ed
geg6
The only reason most people won’t ever taste the wonders of a locally grown apple is that they are too lazy to go to the local farmer’s market, where they are plentiful. They’d rather go buy their apples at the local Walmart Super Store, where they’ve been off the trees for a month or more. Anyone who buys food at Walmart does not even deserve to taste the wonders of locally grown apples since they obviously have no taste and no taste buds.
Ovid
E. B. White’s essay On a Florida Key makes wonderful use of people’s unfamiliarity with what fruit actually look like.
Cat Lady
I love macouns for eating, and I’ve become an apple dehydrating fool for the larger kinds. It takes time, but there’s something incredibly satisfying about taking a big bag of apples and turning them into sandwich bags full of crispy crunchy chips that maintain all the flavor of the original. I tuck them into my purse for snacks that satisfy my crunchy sweet tooth, and have given them away as gifts.
All you need is this and this, and you’re off and running.
Svensker
@cleek:
Also, to develop good flavor apples need cold nights at a certain part of their life cycle. New York state is awesome for apples because of the weather, whereas much of NC wouldn’t have great apples (maybe some of the hill country does?) for the same reason.
Martin
Oh, and I have a golden dorsett tree in my yard – quite a treat for coastal OC. It’s probably the only apple tree for 10 miles. Great for pies.
Sloegin
Back when I was a kid, you could easily (and cheaply) find amazing Red Delicious apples, perfect shape, and so hard they could pull your teeth out.
Then Washington state apple growers discovered the Japanese market. Nothing but second-hand old flavorless mush apples since.
It’s a bit like mom making Christmas fudge for all the neighbors and not letting you have a piece.
jibeaux
@cleek:
Try Century Farm Orchards, open houses Saturdays in November.
Okay, I have a very open-thready question for anyone in Pittsburgh.
Relatives moving to Pittsburgh for a year to possibly two years. Want to rent something, probably 3 bedrooms, in a nice ordinary neighborhood. They are having a really hard time finding affordable rental options, although they report the housing prices to buy aren’t high at all. Craigslist is no help and the listings seem sketchy. I will pass on any useful suggestions from our handy random community here.
addie
You’re right about the flavor of just-picked tree-ripe apples (well, at least on Fujis – some varieties, like winesap are actually better after a few weeks of storage to develop their flavor, but I digress). However, as someone that works in the Washington apple industry, I must say you’re wrong about them being soaked in water for weeks. I don’t know where you heard that, but it’s not something that is done, and it would probably totally wreck the fruit. The apples are floated out of the harvest bins & washed, yes, but that’s a process of minutes not weeks. Oh, and organic apples (which is what I deal with) are rarely waxed, although there are organic waxes available.
MattR
@Martin: I don’t think your example has anything to do with earmarks. If it is a defense project spread across 40 different states, it will be included “normally” in the appropriations bill rather than having a single member add it on as an earmark.
(Having said that, you do point out the major reason why the defense budget will never be reined in)
Athenae
I need to get some more Honey Crisps before they’re gone completely. I buy bushels of them at the farmer’s market here and then eat them like kids eat candy. A little sharp cheddar cheese on the side and it’s heaven.
A.
geg6
@jibeaux:
What part of the city do they want to be in? That matters in the rental world around here. If they insist on being IN the city, they will pay a lot. If they are willing to have a bit of a commute, outside Allegheny County is ridiculously affordable, whether renting or buying.
That said, IMHO, the best neighborhood to live in that is still in the city is Squirrel Hill. I like Bloomfield quite a bit, too.
Comrade Javamanphil
Got one round of picking in this year. A late ice storm knocked off many blossoms of my usual orchard. Still, they grow some great cortlands and empires.
And since this is an OT, I just noticed that Ben Domenech, noted plagiarist, uses a picture of Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes as his avatar on Twitter. Bill Watterson was quite vocal in his opposition to his characters being licensed. If they didn’t appear in the comic, therefore, they are stolen images. Poor Ben just can’t kick the habit.
David
Try a tree ripened grapefruit sometime. If only they could get them into grocery stores.
Fwiffo
If you can get your hands on a Northern Spy, do so.
Mark
The same is true of peaches. Peaches were once available only locally grown because they were too delicate to be shipped. Then growers developed study, tasteless, hard peaches that survive shipping but have almost no taste. Plus all the local orchards disappeared. I remember as a kid going to a pick-your-own orchard near home. It was hot and itchy, but boy did the peaches taste good. That orchard is long gone.
Violet
@geg6:
You live up north, don’t you? Not many apples at my farmers market.
Angelos
Agreed. Upstate NY farmers’ markets, fall, dozens of varieties… heaven.
Martin
@cleek: Pies take practice. They aren’t really difficult, but they’re subtle. Crank one out each week and you’ll get it down. Store bought apples work fine, but variety matters. What’s good for eating is usually not good for baking.
A good crust is more than half the battle. I work off of Julia Child’s pâte brisée recipe, but instead of 1/2 cup water, I’ll do 1/6 cup water, 1/6 cup vodka. The alcohol in the vodka doesn’t form gluten, so it doesn’t toughen up the crust but it does keep the dough workable and the alcohol evaporates off during baking. It leaves no flavor behind. You can of course do a full 1/3 cup of cranberry schnopps instead to add a nice supporting flavor there.
Dennis SGMM
When I was a youngster we lived in Tracyton, Washington, for a couple of years. The property had a small Granny Smith apple orchard, a couple of cherry trees, and a blackberry bramble that was around three acres in extent. When the berries came in people would come from miles around to pick them. They laid elaborate networks of boards across the top of the bramble and it was often worth the time just to watch them crawl along precariously while trying to balance their picking buckets. We kids quickly figured out that someone our size could low-crawl right to the otherwise-unreachable middle of the thing where the berries were the biggest and sweetest.
These are memories that make me a wealthy soul.
jehrler
@Mark:
Mmmm, peaches.
We tried to see if we can grow them here in MN for just that reason but, alas, we are too far north.
HoneyCrisps or Bust! it seems.
MattR
@Mark: For some reason I can still remember that one of my counselors at camp 20+ years ago had a T-shirt that said “It’s just like biting into a fresh peach”
jl
“There really is no comparison to the stuff you get in a grocery store.”
Damn straight.
The destruction of good fruit starts before it is even planted.
A marketable variety has to ripen all at once to make picking economic, has be able to be picked green and develop flavor (if not sugar) after picking, and has to survive the rough handling of shipping.
Then you have the games farmers play with commercial crops to make a higher profit, which is to sell water rather than fruit. So you try to maximize water content of the fruit by irrigation schedules, if you irrigate. Which means keeping crop drier than it should be during some periods, and then pumping up the fruit with water shortly before picking.
And then you cheat on fertilizer, which is where mineral deficiencies come in. In apples, you usually spot them by different sorts of weirdness around the core (spongy and brown, or little clear jelly like spots).
Dry farm apples coming in around here. Arkansas black, black twig, robissen, pink lady, my favorites. I also jumped on the gravensteins earlier this summer.
I like fruit with some tartness and robust flavor, so I go for cooking and certain kinds of cider apples.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mark: Peaches is available here. NSFW.
South of I-10
We don’t get home grown apples, they just don’t grow well here. We have been eating tons of fresh oranges, satsumas and kumquats. So delicious. I wish I could grow Honey Crisps, I would save a lot of money!
Zuzu's Petals
I buy local grown and organic, so at least it’s that much closer to fresh.
But yep, Fuji apples are the BEST.
Ducktape
I’ve made friends with the vendors at our local organic farmers’ market. Each week at the close of market, I collect the fruit that they’ve decided isn’t worth being held over to the next day. In the case of apples, that usually means a bruise or a cut or a small rotten spot.
I bring them home (almost a bushel last Saturday), pull out a few of the best for eating, and juice the rest. I end up with a couple of wonderful things:
1 – Unpasteurized organic apple cider. I scoop the foam from the juicer off the top and put the cider in the fridge — if it doesn’t get all drunk during the week, after a week or so it starts to get “sparkly” (carbonated) and less sweet as it begins to ferment. Drink at any stage you like.
If you want to force to go hard more quickly, leave the bottle of cider on the counter for a couple of days after you juice it, then refrigerate it. As it begins to ferment, make sure you leave some headspace (I like to use a fairly soft container like an old plastic milk bottle so I can see when it starts to swell), and open it to bleed off the excess CO2 each day. It is just lovely.
2 – The pressed apple pulp has many uses. If you make bread (by hand or breadmaker), add some apple pulp to your dough as you get it started for extra flavor and fiber. Or … add the foam from the pressing back to the pulp, a bit of sugar (brown or white) to taste, some cinnamon, and some water, and start cooking down the pulp over low heat. For the extra liquid you need, use balsamic vinegar (you can use the 99-cent store stuff, no need to tap into that $30 bottle of super-aged), and maybe a drop or two of vanilla. Balance the sugar and vinegar to get a sweet-sour thing going (more sweet, of course), and cook covered over low heat until it tastes the way you like it. The best applesauce EVAH! Fabulous with anything pork, or by itself.
I haven’t tried drying the applesauce into apple leather rollups yet, but I’ll bet it’s great. That’s what I did with my grape pulp this past summer after juicing.
I found these apples and other fruit were to be had, just for the asking. A lot of times, the discarded fruit ended up in the trash with other things (soda cups, empty plates, etc.), but once I made friends with the vendors, they were happy to toss the fruit into a separate box for me (I offered to provide one if they needed, but they all had boxes they could use).
I thank them by, each week, taking a big thermos of cold lemonade or other iced drink (often including fruit juice from the week before) and some plastic cups around to the vendors at the end of the market. Then I put the empty thermos in the car and go back to pick up the fruit discards. They all look forward to my appearance with cold drinks at the end of the market, and that helps them to remember me as they pick out fruit that they’re not going to carry over to the next day.
R-Jud
@Athenae:
Yes. I actually cut some sharp cheddar into my pastry crust along with the butter when I’m making an apple pie. Just enough so you get that lovely melding of flavors.
wonkie
My parents used to live in a houseing development that had been carved out of an old archard. Consequently tey ad old apple trees in their yard. I have no idea what kind of apples they were., Something planted inthe thirties or forties, I guess. They were small, red and green, worming of course, but so packe dwith flavor that the bite ot two eat apple provided was like eating the concentrated essence of apple. They amde fantastic pe too although it took all of the apples from one tree to make one pie.
Rosalita
Best thing I ever had was a black plum off of the tree in my yard when I lived in So Cal. Still warm from the sun. Had to eat it over the sink it was sooo juicy.
Morbo
I got two out of my yard, no idea what variety the tree is. One was good; one was meh. Hopefully with a little more maintenance I can get a couple more next year.
Dennis SGMM
@Ducktape:
You can use a glass bottle as well. Just use a balloon to cap it.
Omnes Omnibus
@Martin: Pie crust takes a knack. My grandmother has it. No one else in the family can get the combination of flakiness, stability, and flavor that she can. Others have used her recipe (featuring tons of lard), but they just don’t get it right. This reminds me, I need to call her to put in my traditional demand for mincemeat pie at Thanksgiving. It hasn’t happened in 30 years, but traditions are traditions.
grandpajohn
@Cat Lady: Yes my grandma dried apples every year the old fashioned way, spread on a cloth on the roof of the garage, then put them in a bag behind the door of the pantry, where we grandkids would help ourselves , filling our pockets for snacks. Now in those days we didn’t have a store on every corner for snacks or the money to buy them so our snacks consisted of what we could scrounge, a pocket of dried apples, some apples or pears or peaches from the trees, grapes in season ,wild muscadines in season both directly from the vine as well as pockets full of raw peanuts pulled from the plants. now that was the days of healthy snacks
bookcat
R-Jud,
great idea! I hadn’t thought of doing that. Thanks.
Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther
Wow, last year we were all going on an on about Honey Crisps…. God, that year went by in a blur!
cleek
@Martin:
yeah, that’s the thing. she says she only ever used Macs. i’ve tried that, but still doesn’t taste quite right. i’m looking for tart and slightly cidery. i remember her cutting the apples in the evening, then putting them in a bowl overnight (under paper towels) in the fridge. in the AM, they were brown and had lost a ton of water. that helped them hold up during baking, i think. but when i asked about that, she says that was never part of the recipe – just something she’d do when she had to cook the pie early in the morning for whatever reason. i’ve tried it, without much success.
i got decent results last week (though still not what i want) with a mixture of Macs, Empire and Mountaineer. little cinnamon, tiny pinch of sugar.
crust? i buy mine. i can’t bake for shit. i’ve tried multiple times, but i’ve never made a bread or pizza dough from scratch that’s even worth eating. i think my oven hates me.
Linda Featheringill
http://omg.yahoo.com/news/wisconsin-man-shoots-tv-over-bristol-palins-dancing-performance/50848
Not a Palin fan. Man arrested for shooting TV because Bristol made it to the finals.
A Second Amendment Remedy.
You Don't Say
It’s still better than it was when I was growing up, when your choices at the store were between red delicious and … red delicious. I thought I hated apples.
You Don't Say
@Linda Featheringill: It just slays me that a man willing to shoot his TV set about anything cares that much about Dancing with the Stars.
Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther
@Athenae: @R-Jud: Last year I had friends over for chili and beer one evening, more friends than I can reasonably fit around our table, so I had to come up with a “salad” that they could eat with their hands and wasn’t damn crudites.
I cut up apples into small chunks (Granny Smith, I think, but the Honey Crisps would also work, if in a different way), and put them on frilly toothpicks with a little piece of red onion, followed by a little piece of very sharp cheddar (the onion served the dual role of complimenting everything else, and serving as a buffer between the apple and cheese, so that the cheddar didn’t get slimey).
It was v. v. tasty!
burnspbesq
@geg6:
That’s awfully condescending. There are large parts of this country where apple trees don’t do well because of climate, soil, etc. What would you suggest that those of us who live in those parts of the country do?
I’m old enough to remember when there wasn’t a global supply chain for fruits and vegetables, and you could only get things when they were in season locally, and things like bananas and avocados were exotic and expensive. I have no desire to go backwards.
GregB
So according to bad Roger Ailes, NPR is just like the Nazis.
Does that make Garrison Kiellor the Hitler of liberal facsim?
Is Terri Gross Josef Goebbels?
Dave
I love the Fuji for it’s taste, but I picked Honeycrisps here in Maine (southern coastal area) for the first time this fall. Not only are they good, but I was blown away by how long they keep. What a great apple!
quaint irene
Yes, agree that HoneyCrisp’s are the bomb.
My favorite older variety is Stayman Winesap. They only start to become available once we hit a killing frost. They’ve been hard to find this year.
chopper
@Ducktape:
two words: apple butter.
you can make a ton of it, it keeps in jars in the fridge for like 6 months and you can throw a dollop into anything.
pumpkin butter is rad too, when winter squash season comes in. grow a single big hubbard and go fuckin nuts.
stuckinred
@Svensker: Oh yea, up in the mountains of NC and Georgia.
http://www.georgiaapplefestival.org/
chopper
@You Don’t Say:
yeh, it was either red d or granny smith. luckily we had three trees in the backyard. the one i loved was iirc a cortland. crisp as all get-out.
Ross Hershberger
I was born in Muskegon, MI, on the Lake Michigan shore. It’s an outstanding fruit growing region. My grandmother, now 93 still lives on the acre there that she and Grandpa built a house and gardens on in ’48. After a few decades of fooling with berries and tree fruits they had a pretty good little setup for vegetables, blackberries and the most supernaturally delicious peaches ever. When her last peach tree died in ’08 she didn’t replant because she was afraid her eyes weren’t good enough to use the chainsaw to prune.
Their best peaches came from trees that were clones from a ‘volunteer’ tree that came up from a pit in the compost heap. No idea what variety it was but I’d pay just about any money to taste one now.
soonergrunt
Follow up to last week’s thing about the Westboro Baptist people who got their tires slashed in McAlester, OK:
Culture of Truth
I like apples but resent having to send Steve Jobs a dollar every time I bite into one.
Omnes Omnibus
@soonergrunt: Lovely people.
cleek
@soonergrunt:
that sounds like the kind of line you’d cross if you want one or more of your gang to end up dead.
stuckinred
@Ross Hershberger: I used to go fishin up there. Hang out at the Bear Lake Tavern some and fish in the bay and on the breakwall out to the lake. Great times.
R-Jud
@Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther: That sounds really good.
I make apple and red onion soup a lot this time of year (peel and chop the apples and onions, throw them in a pot with butter, salt, pepper, thyme, and puree when mushy– adding stock is optional) and grate cheddar cheese or crumble some stilton over it. Our tree grows Bramleys, which aren’t an eating apple, so we have to cook the apples if we’re going to use them.
stuckinred
@soonergrunt: one shot
Ross Hershberger
@stuckinred:
Small world. My dad has a cottage on Bear Lake and keeps his salmon fishing boat at Manistee. Good fishing around there. And pretty good food at the Tavern.
soonergrunt
@cleek: Owasso is just north of Tulsa, and right on the edge of Deliverance country.
This might not go well for them.
stuckinred
@Ross Hershberger: Yea, it was quite a time 27 years ago or so. My pal played football at N Muscegon and then at Illinois. Him and his buddies up there were out of control!
Roger Moore
Try some back yard avocados sometime. They’re fantastic, and another example of a fruit that has become standardized by the need to transport it long distances to market. That’s not to say that Haas avocados are bad, but some of the other varieties you can get around here are fantastic. Even better, one tree will grow more fruit than a single family will eat, so everyone with avocado trees- they’re a popular shade tree, too- will be desperately trying to get rid of them.
Ross Hershberger
@soonergrunt:
Who would Jesus insult?
Omnes Omnibus
@cleek: Yes, I am thinking that a grief-stricken family member may just lose it and pound the living hell out of one of assholes sometime soon. At a criminal trial, a temporary insanity/provocation defense would convince a jury. At the civil trial, I think the same thing holds true. I can’t imagine a jury deciding a case in favor of the Westboro folk if they have any legal alternative.
soonergrunt
@stuckinred:
@Omnes Omnibus: Yeah, and these idiots are only making it worse.
Martin
@Omnes Omnibus: Try mine. It’s pretty foolproof. I’ve made it stupid-drunk and it’s turned out well. I’m always rushed for time, so I rely on the stand mixer, but I can knock out a batch of pie dough in about 5 minutes.
I *always* have my dough set up overnight though – or I pull some I’ve made out of the freezer. That’s not a small thing. It takes time in a cold place for it to come together before its ready for the oven. Bake at 400 – it’s a pie, not a roast.
celticdragonchick
I love nothing better than to go to Pickering Orchards in Southern Virginia for cherry season and eat cherries off the tree! My kid was about 4 when we forst took him and he was covered in cherry juice when we took our buckets to be weighed and priced. The checkout guy asked my son how many cherries he ate and my son said “One!”.
We had a hell of a laugh on that one.
jl
@quaint irene: Thanks! I forgot to mention honey crisps and winesap. Love them both.
R-Jud
@soonergrunt:
Wow, revenge! Just like Jesus!
Violet
@burnspbesq:
Yes. Thank you.
MattR
@soonergrunt: I am going to be oh so disappointed if this keeps them from heading to my neck of the woods this weekend to protest a local HS performing “The Laramie Project”
jl
@Roger Moore: I think it depends what you want to do with them. I think Haas best for robust flavor. Reeds for smoothness, gems for buttery tastes. Gem/hass for nice combos.
There are plenty of other varieties.
Only see Haas and Fuerte in stores, which is too bad.
Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther
@R-Jud: That sounds fabulous! I should print out your description and try it.
Indeed, I think I shall.
stuckinred
What about all the bullshit about them filing suit on the slashed tires? Must not have a case.
Omnes Omnibus
@Martin: I want Grandma’s pie crust, dammit! No offense to yours. I think pie crust and stuffing are things that run in families and no one else’s compares.
soonergrunt
@MattR: I understand, but I will NOT be disappointed if they do that.
Owasso is in the same neck of the woods as McAlester. While Owasso is north of Tulsa and McAlester is south of Muskogee, they’re both in eastern OK, and starting to get into, as I noted earlier, Deliverance country.
This could get ugly, real quick.
Rhoda
Fresh fruit off a tree, I haven’t had that in years. It’s the grocery store only for me; I miss it.
OT: but James Carville did it again. “If Hillary gave up one of her balls and gave it to Obama, he’d have two.” Bitter Clinton dead-enders are a sight to see.
R-Jud
@Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther: It is SO easy. Use a good tart apple.
Ajay
I live in suburbs but planted following fruit trees(all semi-dwarf variety, probably reaching 20 ft).:
2 varieties of Cherry(sour)
2 Pear
2 Plum
1 – 5 variety Apple (fujI+Galla etc).
5 peach trees.
These are still young but I was very surprised by the production of pear trees. I got 40 or so on two trees(close to 10 ft tall). No disease that was noticeable. No chemicals. Very nice.
I am surprised that people dont plant fruit trees as opposed to flowering variety. In some new varieties the fruit stays on the tree avoiding the clean up .
The Republic of Stupidity
I made pocket money as a kid picking apples in upstate NY… $3.50 a tote box, which figured out to 10 cents a bushel…
And you are absolutely correct, John… most people today will never know what an apple right off the tree tastes like… the best ones came off the sun shoots, as we called ’em, right up at the top of the tree… big, almost purple Macs w/ sugar spots… the juice would run down your arm as you ate one…
The ones I get out here on the WC these days don’t even come close…
Kit Smith
I was fortunate as a kid that my best friend’s parents ran a local orchard. Many a weekend we spent running around out in the hundreds of acres of trees, and I was never without fresh apples.
I think I what I miss most is fresh, unpasteurized cider. I have to drive an hour each way to the nearest place I’ve been able to find so far, but every time I head home to visit the parents I always pick up some fresh cider
quaint irene
I’ve got an old Macintosh tree in my yard. It was let to grow tall and wasn’t pruned like most fruit trees.
How do you keep the squirrels from corraling the majority of the fruit?
Martin
@burnspbesq: The problem isn’t the climate or soil – it’s the size of the population. I’ve got an apple tree in my yard. The only place harder to grow them is coastal Hawaii.
But we’ve got 15 million people here in the basin. There’s no way you’re going to get enough apples growing locally for that many people – at least not without displacing the strawberries, oranges, lemons, etc, which I don’t think anyone here is willing to give up.
Large population centers simply have to import produce. It was still a condescending statement, but for different reasons.
Svensker
@Roger Moore:
When I lived in So. Cal. a friend had an avocado tree and would bring me literal grocery bags full of avocados when it was harvest time. Heaven’s got nothing on the concept of eating your absolute fill of fresh guacamole. Man oh man.
Then I moved to NJ and avocados were $1 each. No guac for me.
stuckinred
WASHINGTON — The Republican campaign to take away all federal funding from National Public Radio (NPR) was over before it began, with GOP lawmakers’ procedural trick to force a vote on the issue failing on Thursday. It was the first GOP-ordered House vote since the election.
Svensker
@quaint irene:
You either have to protect the fruit with netting/bags, or get rid of the squirrels. Brunswick Stew, anyone?
catclub
@soonergrunt:
They did not finger anyone to sue from the previous incident,
and are hoping to incite/catch someone this time with the new technique of making sure to tell people where they will be.
Martin
@Svensker: Heh, not 5 seconds ago my coworker dumped a big bag of avocados on my desk…
arguingwithsignposts
@catclub:
Well, apparently God hates Oklahoma now.
jibeaux
@geg6:
I believe they mentioned Squirrel Hill as an interest.
Roger Moore
@quaint irene:
Raise chickens. One of my coworkers spent most of last year bitching and moaning about the squirrels eating her garden, especially her avocados. This year, she got a couple of chickens, who in addition to providing eggs and meat also scare squirrels away. Now she’s complaining about having more fruit than she knows what to do with.
Martin
@quaint irene: And that’s a benefit of growing apples in SoCal. There are no squirrels where I live. Coyotes get the few that roam in from other areas.
I do have a possum that regularly raids my tree, though. I haven’t quite figured out how to deal with him, but we have almost nightly conversations in late summer and fall while I go out with my kick-ass flashlight and explain to him why his behavior is unacceptable. He (she?) will eat 1/4 of an apple and then knock it down, and then move on to the next apple. I’ve told him repeatedly that I don’t mind if he eats the apples, but he has to finish them – get that fat possum ass off out of the tree and eat the ones on the ground that he knocks down.
I may have to resort to sterner measures next year.
geg6
@burnspbesq:
I’m old enough to remember those times, too. Unfortunately, the taste of the fruits and vegetables we get in these global times sucks, for the most part. Although there are exceptions (like bananas), the nastiness of so much of what we get in supermarkets is bad enough that I have gone back to eating fresh and locally as often as possible. And the supermarket produce is almost like a farmer’s market compared to what you get at a Walmart Super Center. My way is more healthy and less expensive than what your average American does when buying food.
It is not condescending at all to note that Americans are, for the most part, too lazy and interested in convenience to actually seek out fresh, better tasting food. It’s a fact. Ask any doctor or nutritionist.
Roger Moore
@Martin:
And people wonder why anyone would live in Southern California…
Ross Hershberger
My grandmother’s pies are legendary. She doesn’t have a recipe for crust dough per se but she uses lard instead of butter so maybe that’s the secret.
I’m a vegetarian but I’ll eat that pie. A 93 year old woman doesn’t need to have that conversation with her grandson.
Roger Moore
@Martin:
What part of Southern California is that, exactly? In the San Gabriel Valley, it seems like every oak tree has a resident family of squirrels. I have a very hard time believing that coyotes could get them, either, since I’ve never heard of coyotes being champion tree climbers.
Nick
Read this
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2010/11/senior-administration-official-defends-ghailani-trial-verdict.html
and then read the comments in the comment section
and then tell me “using the bully pulpit” works
Martin
@Roger Moore: The avocados I could learn to live without again. The lemons I could not. My lemon tree now puts enough out to have fresh lemonade year-round. I go through a gallon of the stuff a week.
I swear I must have suffered from scurvy as a child given how dependent I am on citrus now.
bemused
John, a couple of suggestions for home scents I like that use more natural ingredients:
Mrs. Meyers plug-in scent diffusers in basil, lavender, lemon verbena, and geranium.
Indigo Wild Whiff Sticks in grapefruit-rosemary, lavender, vanilla-cinnamon and frankincense & myrrh.
Judas Escargot
Hmmm. Cider donuts…
geg6
@jibeaux:
Squirrel Hill is a lovely neighborhood (I believe our own Tim F. lives there). Very close to the downtown area and situated right next door to Oakland, home of the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University. It’s sometimes characterized as a Jewish neighborhood (and, really, is) but it is diverse. I used to go there a lot when I was in college and there used to be a record store/head shop called Heads Together there. It is also one of the more expensive neighborhoods of the city.
Bloomfield is our Little Italy. Another nice neighborhood, with great little restaurants and a truly legendary diner. It’s just outside of downtown and has a lot of homes in the Craftsman style. Another neighborhood close by is called Friendship. I went on a house tour there a few years ago. It’s also a nice place, especially if you have kids, as it seems to have a lot of young families living there. It’s also a bit of an artsy enclave. A lot of Victorian-type and early 20th c. homes there. They tend to be large and have multiple floors.
Kryptik
You guys are making me crave some apple desserts of some kind. Damn you all.
On a different note though….the whole reaction to the Ghailani verdicts is starting to piss me off, considering everyone fucking seems to take it as a repudiation of federal trials over military trials. Clue, dumbfucks, a lot of the evidence wouldn’t have been thrown out if your great Leader and Darth Cheney didn’t have a torture fetish.
Comrade Darkness
Since dogs are such a feature here, I have to pass on this blog post from Hyperbole and a Half that just had me tearing up with a painful kind of laughter.
Dogs don’t understand basic concepts like moving
cleter
I know what a mango tastes like right off the tree. It’s unbelievable. So are oranges. Oh, and a fresh-picked pineapple. My god. That counts for something, I guess.
Ross Hershberger
Over here by the Detroit Zoo we have 5 varieties of squirrels in our yard: black, grey, fox, red and striped ground.
I hate the red squirrels for breaking into the attic and hoarding pine cones. I still felt bad though last summer when I was up on a ladder repairing their latest hole chewed through the eaves and a Cooper’s Hawk swooped down and picked one of the little vandals off. Yikes.
Kryptik
@Comrade Darkness:
Oh god, that was something I should not have been reading at work. I barely managed to stifle what should have been a hysterical, floor-rolling guffaw into something that sounded like I was having a sneezing fit.
I made food! I’M MAGICAL!!
jibeaux
@geg6:
Cool, thanks for the ideas.
geg6
@jibeaux:
Now, if they truly want an inexpensive rental home, I’d suggest ditching the city life and heading outside the city near the airport in Beaver County. You can rent a huge place here for less than $1500 and it’s about 20 minutes from the airport and another 20 (due to traffic, not distance) to the city.
licensed to kill time
@Comrade Darkness:
Hyperbole and a Half is such a wicked great site. Her stories and drawings (incomparable drawings!) combine in some magical way that leaves me laughing uncontrollably, gasping for breath, streaming tears, and in a much better mood than when I started.
It’s like some really great drug. Here-take one Hyperbole and a Half and call me in the morning! You’ll feel better, I swear!
Or maybe “the first one’s free!” ‘Cause you’ll definitely get hooked :)
Svensker
@Comrade Darkness:
I LOVE that.
Death Panel Truck
@geg6:
Apparently you’ve never heard of CA storage. That’s where fruit companies store their apples in a room devoid of oxygen. The door has a sign on it that reads, “DANGER: Will not support life.”
J.W. Hamner
I wonder if in twenty years the only people who get married are gay: 4 in 10 people think marriage obsolete.
twiffer
i live in CT. we’re chock full of apple orchards. there are about 5 apple orchards and berry farms within 3 miles of my home. i’m sticking with the local macouns as the best apples ever though.
also: cider donuts. yum!
geg6
@J.W. Hamner:
Well, I, personally, have no idea why gay people would want to get married. I’d rather be dead than married (or have a child, for that matter). Never had any desire to do it. Never played bride as a child (or with a babydoll), never had a Barbie wedding dress for my career-only Barbie, and turned down more than one marriage proposal.
And, miraculously, I’ve lived to the ripe old age of 52, have no regrets whatsoever about it, and am (and always have been serially) monogamous.
My opinion on the matter is that marriage should be one of the rarest things in the world. There should be rigorous written and practical tests that must be passed, years-long trial periods, and disinterested observers with professional credentials who have to sign off on the marriage before it could take place. And no divorce once it does. And if you have no intention of having children, you can’t marry. And you can’t have children unless you are married.
The process should be the same or even more rigorous for having a child.
I realize my ideal is not practical. But I’d rather live in a world using my rules about this than the one I live in now. I’m so sick of the idiots who tsk-tsk about how sad it is that I never married and how lonely I must be without children. Fuck that. I’m thrilled I never married and I’d shoot myself if I had to have kids around me for more than 10 minutes at a time. I know that I’m happier than any married (or once-married) woman of my acquaintance. I think they are just trying to convince themselves that I must hate my life just so they don’t have to look at their own.
But that’s just me. ;-)
Ross Hershberger
Marriage. I understand why people want to and some people always will. But I wish there was another way to get the legal benefits without all of the baggage of that traditional religious/governmental sanction. And of course that should be for any gender combination.
I mostly hate the traditional wedding trappings and spectacle. As I’ve gotten older pageantry and ostentation, and ceremony of all kinds just bothers me.
I said I’d get married when I found a woman who thought the (Elvis themed) Graceland Chapel in Vegas was a cool idea. I did, and we’ve been hitched for 11 years.
Comrade Mary
@cleek: Do you have a food processor and a scale? This recipe works for me.
10 ounces all purpose flour (not pastry flour)
5 ounces lard
1/2 teaspoon salt
Up to 4 ounces of ice-cold water (you may keep an extra ounce around if you’re baking under really dry conditions)
1. Cut lard into pieces the size of dominoes, then stick in the freezer for an hour to get really cold.
2. Put the water in the freezer, too.
3. Combine flour and salt in a food processor.
4. Open processor and dump in chilled lard. Close and pulse several times until you get pieces from of varying sizes, up to the size of a marble.
5. Start the processor again on steady state and drizzle in water through the pour spout. You may need less water in humid weather, so don’t feel obliged to pour it all in. You want the dough to start to come together, but if it starts whirring around loose as a single lump, you’ve gone too far.
6. Divide into two flattened rounds and store separately wrapped in plastic in fridge for an hour or more.
7. Roll and bake.
I have to try the vodka trick. I don’t think the gin I have hanging around would be a good substitute.
ruemara
it’s funy BJ has devolved into an apple and bakery/doggies site today, as I fail to get my meringue topping to set properly for my apple, caramel and cake trifle.
tamied
jibeaux, another option outside the city limits but still close to town is Forest Hills. Right on the other side of the Squirrel Hill tunnels. It has a nice neighborhood feel but is a little more suburban than Squ. Hill.
curious
apparently, democrats in washington took away businesses’ ability to predict the future so now we can’t have jobs. i think that’s a fair summary of this ridiculous, ridiculous video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tw688Kbjy4
burnspbesq
@Svensker:
“or get rid of the squirrels. Brunswick Stew, anyone?”
ROFL. You win this thread.
burnspbesq
@Roger Moore:
The homeowners’ associations in Irvine got together and banned squirrels. ;-)
twiffer
@soonergrunt: these people are fucking insane.
MattR
@ruemara: How about we combine the doggies and the bakery? Here’s a recipe for the peanut butter dog biscuits I will be making as soon as I get my ass to the supermarket to buy flour.
JerseyJeffersonian
Patronize your local growers at a farmers’ market. You’re gonna need those local guys and gals when the banksters and corporates succeed in really trashing the place. And besides, as John points out, it’s just better stuff anyway, even beyond the fact that there’s a much smaller carbon footprint generated by locally-grown and locally-distributed foodstuffs.
JWW
John the Butt-Buddy again shows off his suck talent. I posted a very harmless comment on his site about the alcohol based drinks with caffine added. There was true science involved, but it was too much for his ego or empty skull to understand. Again John, as for being a POS as always, you still have not found your balls yet!!!