Apple Story…

I’ve been an apple-a-day guy for most of my life. I grew up with an apple tree in our New Jersey backyard. Never learned what kind of apple they were except they were plentiful and with the taste of a Macintosh, my father’s favorite. Of course, most of the year this backyard fruit was inedible.

I switched to organic types about ten years ago after reading about the type of pesticides applied to apple trees. Interestingly enough, my parents were supermarket shoppers, save for apples which they bought at a local farmer’s market. I have this first bite of the apple taste in my memory that always surpasses anything I eat these days. In fact, I find these specialty apples such as the Pink Lady to be artificially sweet—they don’t match up with fresh apples from decades ago. But this is taste factor is more of a matter of memory than fact. My favorite in current times is the Cameo.

I dislike apples that look as if they’ve been to shoe-shine factory which isn’t an issue when buying organic where the challenge is to select the least beat-up ones. This week I noticed I’d forgotten to eat an apple which had really started to show its age. I took a photo of it because of the shadow it cast in the morning light and the memories it evoked.