I delight in autumn. At least when it’s not raining for three days and being totally gloomy. A little rain is good to keep the dust from decaying leaves down on the ground where it can do some good. It’s not nourishing the soil when it is making me sneeze!

I appreciate the produce that is available in the fall at the Farmer’s Market around here. I especially enjoy the guys with thirty or forty different apple types. They bring nine or ten types on any given weekend but over time the assortment shifts, so if I like something I’ve got to get it quick!

One of the entertaining things I do with all those apple varieties is to take several different kinds when I go to visit my grandchildren. That household eats lots of apples, mostly whatever is in the market near them. I try to take apples with interesting names. The worst problem I face is that I lose track of what I have. I don’t really like standing in the market writing on a sticky note and attaching it to an apple — let alone that sticky notes don’t really stick, under these conditions! Hmm. Should I do one plastic bag per apple? People will really frown over that and it doesn’t solve the label problem since now I’m writing on the bag. I haven’t really solved this dilemma, so last weekend when I bought a bunch of apples I hastily marked the ones whose names I was sure of when I got home — and those are the ones I took with to the grandkids. I had three more apples without names and I’m just eating those myself.

The results this time were interesting. We all agreed that Crimson Crisp apples were in fact very crisp. They also taste just like an apple. But … some of the other apples, Crunch-A-Bunch and Swiss Arlet had better flavor though the snap wasn’t there. So Crimson Crisp was voted off the island, and I was instructed to look for more Crunch-A-Bunch to go with the next batch.

I also note that I used to bring one apple and then two. When I started bringing three apples, I started playing the variety game. Yesterday, we consumed five apples without breaking stride. There are more gorgeous children and they are older and sturdier and eat more.

There are stories in my family of my brothers sitting down with a bushel of apples and consuming them over the course of a book or two. I want to say I’m remembering wrong — a bushel?! — but at this point I’m not sure.

The kids want to make applesauce when they come to visit so that’s the other aspect of apple that I have to consider. I can say with great confidence that there are apples that don’t yield to heat when they are cooked. They make chunky applesauce which I think is anathema. It’s tricky with all these different varieties to figure out which ones have that unyielding property. I thought I would look on the internet for information, and discovered once again that the internet is full of nonsense.

I know from bitter experience that Pink Lady, Gala, and some others do not break down in a nice applesaucy way. Naturally there are people recommending them. What’s truly mysterious to me is the Gala recommendation. Years ago I had some straight off a tree and they tasted fabulous but they didn’t give up their shape without a fight. Maybe they get mushy with time. I used to buy Pink Ladies for Christmas stocking filler just because they were both pretty and totally tough. Not for applesauce!

Anyway, Smokehouse apples are green like Granny Smith apples, but I suspect that they might make great applesauce. I’m going to try the experiment, assuming that I haven’t already missed the window for buying that variety. If the applesauce is good, I’m going to make applesauce pancakes right afterwards.

I think the knobby objects in the above painting might be quince.

HEADER: Study of Apples from Nature 1863 William Rickarby Miller
Painter, American, born England, 1818 – 1893 NGA public domain.