Day 42 - Cortland

Today's apple is the Cortland.  It originated in Geneva, New York in 1898.  It has long been one of the most produced apples in the state.  I lived in New York for a number of years and my parents were born there.  When I started this blog and asked my mom about apples to review, she immediately thought of the Cortland.

The Cortland is a hybrid of the McIntosh and Ben Davis.  It is generally a medium size and the shape is slightly squished or flattened on top and round.  It's a purdy apple, golden with flushes, streaks and stripes of bright red.

Being slow to brown, the Cortland is great for slicing or adding to salads.  It does however, have a short shelf life so stop dilly dallying and eat your damn apple!

The crisp, finely-grained white flesh is exceptionally juicy with a sharp, sweet-tart, vinous flavor. Other than the skin being a little thick for my liking, this apple is alright by me.  Happy Birthday Kat, you are not a complete disappointment!

The Cortland has a fresh, all-American quality that makes me think about playing outside or trick-or-treating in the Fall as a kid and watching Little House on the Prairie.  Boy that Nellie Oleson sure was a bitch!

My next review will be of the GIGANTIC Pippin apple.  Crunch on!

Day 41 - Apple Pear

"This Apple Pear is F***ing delicious but is it a pear or is it an apple?", I said to myself while eating it and then I wrote it just now, quite lovely!

The Apple Pear or Asian Pear is not a pear/apple hybrid at all.  It is just a pear but with many of the good qualities of an apple.

Apple Pears are an old pear variety brought from China to the west coast during the gold rush days and have been cultivated in Asia for 3000 years.  They have a light-yellow or tan colored skin, white flesh and a shape like an apple.

Apple Pears ripen on the tree and are ready to eat when harvested unlike other types of pears where you have to wait forever for them to ripen, maybe utilizing a paper bag, storing them room temperature, crossing your fingers, praying, using voodoo, continually squeezing them.  As the skin of your average pear gets more brown, battered and bruised, you might take a bite and realize it's still not ready or you've waited too long, aarrrrgh!  Finding the right window to eat it sometimes seems like a pain in the ass!

Apple Pears have a great shelf life.  They will be fine 10 to 14 days at room temperature and 3 to 4 weeks in the refrigerator and they are slow to brown when cut open.

In Chinese medicine, Apple Pears are used for detoxification, coughs, laryngitis, ulcers and constipation.

Even though it is not an apple, this early Fall fruit is phat stacks good, yo!  It has a thin skin with a snappy, crisp bite.  It is juicy and has a slight floral aroma.  The flavor is that of a good pear with medium sweetness and notes of honeydew and Honey Crisp apple.  Try one of these damn things, I think you'll like it!

My next blog will feature the Cortland.  Crunch on!

Day 40 - Paula Red

Today's apple is the Paula Red, also called Paulared.  It started as a chance seedling discovered near a McIntosh orchard In Sparta Township, Michigan in 1960.  They are very round apples, on the small side, a red color with splotches of yellow.  The Paula Red has thick skin.  The flesh starts out crisp but they get soft fast and can brown easily.

They are considered a great apple for making apple sauce because they soften quickly while baking.

The flavor is sweet but a little more on the tart side, not terribly juicy.  I found the texture quite mealy and I'm not a fan of thick skin on an apple.  I have tried a couple other Paula Reds the last couple weeks that were not this mealy but my tasting notes are about THE apple I eat while writing the blog.  It is similar to a McIntosh, which has never been an apple I care for too much, even though my Day 5 review of said apple was better than I expected.

In conclusion, Paula Red, not an apple so much as a crapple!  It is better than the loathsome Red Delicious but not by much.  Use it for apple sauce.

Next time, I will review the exotic and mysterious Apple Pear.  Crunch on!

Day 39 - Lemonade and Vacation From Apples

Today's selection is the Lemonade apple.

My last Apple blog entry was April 16th, 2017.  I have taken quite a break from it.  The original concept was to eat a different apple or apple product and write about it every day.  I posted 38 entries and only skipped 4 days.  For those days I skipped, I punished myself by eating an apple in a blizzard (day 22), in a horrible storm (day 32) and the 3rd time when I skipped 2 days (day 33) I just gave myself a good beating and verbal lashing for my transgression.  If you read the blogs, you will see these were death-defying punishments.

I decided now that I'm doing the blog again, I am not going to pressure myself to do them every day but often.  I am however, going to try to eat an apple every day as they are delicious, nutritious and possibly holy.  It was the apple that tempted Adam and Eve to the point where they disobeyed God! Sure, the serpent was probably very convincing but those apples must have been something else!  I will have a post about ancient apples as there are many orchards that are trying to keep them from extinction.

During my hiatus from the blog, I traveled the world trying different fruits.  The above picture is from an exotic locale (possible Arvada CO).  I went nuts for bananas.  I ate melon, various berries, guava, papaya, dragon fruit, the unfortunately named kumquat, lemons, limes, Cuties, pears, but it quickly became apparent that the apple was my favorite!

Ok, onto the review, the Lemonade is a New Zealand apple from the Yummy Fruit Company that just came out last year.  It is a cross between a Gala and a Braeburn.  It is a gold or light green in color with some patches of red.  It has quite an elongated shape and they are often tilted so they might not stand up very well, kind of like trying to stand up an egg.  Weebles wobble but they don't fall down but the Lemonade apple may and if it does, it may bruise as they have a thin skin and are delicate in that way.

They are supposed to be a "fizzy" apple, kind of like a glass of lemonade with some bubbles.  I don't really get the fizzy but it is good, crisp, tart, juicy and refreshing.  It is indeed somewhat reminiscent of a glass of lemonade.  Compared to other apples, I would rank Lemonade somewhere in the middle.  I did consume several as this was the first apple variety I'd seen in a while that I had not tried.

Finally, with the new growing season, there are some other apples out there for me to eat.  My next blog will feature the Paula Red.  Will it make the cut?  Tune in to find out and crunch on!

Day 38 - Sun-Maid dried Washington Apples

They are not fresh.  They are dried ... apples!  Sun-Maid dried Washington Apples are made using only the highest quality Washington apples.  They are orchard-ripened to the peak of their flavor, picked, sliced, carefully, oh so carefully dried and sealed into 5-ounce zipper bags to lock in freshness.

I found they had a pleasant level of stickiness and a shape that allowed me to stick them to my face as a mustache or eye brows!  With a little makeup, you could probably make them into a good fake scar as well.

I could not find out what specific variety of apple they are made from but they are tasty!  I like them on their own, in oatmeal, on my face or on cereal.  The only added ingredients are Potassium Metabisulfite and Sodium Sulfite as preservatives. They are healthier than cookies or chips so that's good.

In conclusion, they are better than raisins.  Tomorrow, I review Marzetti Peanut Butter Caramel Dip! for apples.  Crunch on!

Day 37 - Organic Braeburn and Dreams

Today's apple is the organic version of my old friend, from the 1990's, the Braeburn.  It is a good apple, this one is a good apple.  I would place it somewhere in the middle if I were ranking them, sweet, juicy, tart and fairly firm.

I would not be doing this blog today if not for the Braeburn.  As I said in my Day 9 review,  I was on lunch break at work at the Fox affiliate in Rochester, NY around 1997.  I brought an apple for lunch that day, not realizing it would be the best apple I had every eaten.  It was such a good apple, sweet, juicy, tart, just the right level of firmness and most importantly, that fragrant, floral quality that I had never experienced in an apple!  It was like the apple had been injected with rose water, wow!  It was like looking God in the face!  My legs buckled, I dropped my chips and they literally fell in slow motion.  I screamed, "Oh my God!" and then passed out.

I awoke, face down in a pile of broken chips and dreams to Ted the janitor emptying the trash.  I surveyed the room carefully but any evidence of the Braeburn's existence was gone.  I grabbed Ted by the leg and pleaded, "have you seen ... an apple?"  He said, "no" and pulled away quite rudely. Maybe the whole thing was a dream.  I have been chasing that dragon ever since.

Tomorrow, I review Sun Made brand dried Washington apples.  Crunch on!

Day 36 - Apple Butter Streusel Muffins

Today's review is for a homemade Apple Butter Streusel Muffin.  My wife Laura found the recipe online but added a little candied ginger to the steusel and this muffin is the bomb-diggity!  She executed the recipe flawlessly and it is so good.  The muffin has some cinnamon and nutmeg in the batter.  It has a layer of apple butter, a steusel topping and a apple cider glaze.  Good shit, yo.  Apple-eee and hot-damn!  Here is a link to the recipe:  https://www.tastesoflizzyt.com/apple-butter-streusel-muffins/

Tomorrow, I review the last actual apple I will review for a while.  It is an Organic Braeburn.  I looked for apples at some stores yesterday I hadn't been to before.  I went to Cermak Fresh Market. They had the biggest produce department I have ever seen but no apples I hadn't tried.  I went to Pacific Produce, nothing new.  I found an Organic Braeburn at a new Sendik's store on Miller Park Way.  This will be tomorrow's review.  I will have to wait for the next growing season for some new apples.  Crunch on!