“Some apples”

Elaine and I are fortunate to live about seventeen miles from an orchard. Store-bought apples and peaches cannot compare to apples and peaches from the orchard — especially because we buy apples and peaches only from the orchard and have no basis for comparison. Yesterday the orchard had an Applefest, with cider, apple crisp, and thirty-four varieties of apples to taste. George Washington’s favorite: the Newtown Pippin. The orchardist’s favorite: Etter’s Gold. I especially liked the Calville Blanc d’hiver, a French apple grown by Thomas Jefferson at Monticello. Uncooked, the apple already tasted like pie. My favorite was the crisp, fragrant Ambrosia, though I am disappointed to know that it has much less history behind it, as it dates from the 1990s.

When we traipsed through the orchard, I was on the lookout for “some apples.” And I found them, arranged by nature’s hand.



“Some,” as in “some rocks,” is an abiding preoccupation of these pages.

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12:57 p.m.: Wait a minute — was Ambrosia my favorite? The ones we now have at home seem bland by comparison to whatever I liked best at the orchard.