Check it out here.
I've gotten to be pretty close with my fruit stand at the Davis Farmer's market in Somerville, MA near my house. I ride my bike over after I get out of work, laden down with an empty messenger bag to be filled with goodies. Wednesdays, because of this market, are really my favorite day of the week. And since Amber and I decided to begin eating an apple a day, like the doctor ordered, I've begun liking it even more.
At the market, I've been picking up one or two varieties of apples a week. The buzz about the bumper crop of apples has been all about New England, as the wet wet summer we experienced is due to allow huge crops of apples, big, lovely, flavorful. The man who works at my fruit stand remembers me and smiles, crinkly around the eyes and with a slight overbite. He asks how I liked the (insert last weeks apple choice), recommends another type, and then some other fruits and vegetables with similar flavors "not that you have a sweet tooth, but you appreciate sweetness." Last week it was Fortunes (purportedly spicy, sort of like they were already filled with pumpkin pie spices) and Swiss Gourmet (my new favorite, creamy and like I remember apples tasting). This week, I walked away with Northern Spies (to make a cake) and Roxbury Russet (pictured above).
Here is the kicker about the RR, it is the oldest apple in America. Not an antique apple (that is, one brought from England), but the first known to be cultivated in the US, in the town (now neighborhood) of Roxbury. The apple is not attractive by our standards of apples, it has a strange skin texture, almost fuzzy like a peach, and is thick skinned, small, brownish, and hard as a rock. Certainly no red delish and thank god for that. No surprise, but eating this apple waiting for the train back from Brandeis this afternoon, I feel connected to America in a way that I really enjoy, in a sincere, honest way. In a way that I'll perform again tomorrow and the next day while I eat these apples.
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