A few years ago my friend Cherrie and I attended a cooking class (at a wonderful venue in San Juan Capistrano that is no longer a cooking school) where the subject was apples. No ordinary apples however, but mostly heirloom ones. About 15 years or so ago my DH and I were with good friends, Jerry & Judy, on a driving trip in New England – in September when the leaves were just beginning to turn – and the first farm stand I saw with a big sign announcing “Fresh Apples,” I yelled and asked if we could stop. Back here in California it was in the high 90’s, but that Fall day in Vermont or New Hampshire, it was c-o-l-d, misting with rain. So East Coast Fall. I promptly bought about a dozen apples, of three varieties. I know one of them was Northern Spy. Another had “black” in the name, but I don’t recall it. The flavors were sublime. Different.

You see, where we live in Southern California, we can get nothing – and I mean nothing – except Golden, Pippin, Granny Smith, Red Delicious, McIntosh, Jonathan, Fuji, Braeburn (my DH’s favorite), and now the new Honey Crisp. Occasionally we can find Gala too. As I’m writing this I’m thinking that for many people that’s a LOT of types. But after years and years of those, and knowing there are others out there that offer very different flavor and texture, I’m in an apple-want state of mind. Actually most of those don’t come from California, but from Washington State. We have no heirlooms at all in our neck of the woods. I don’t believe they’d grow here even if we tried since our climate is only good for a couple of unique varieties (Anna, for one). We had an Anna apple in the backyard of our last house. The new owners tore down all of our gorgeous fruit trees (about 5) and put in an expansive cement-lined dog run. Makes me sad just thinking about it because the Anna tree produced some really nice apples.

So anyway, back to that cooking class. We tasted apples of a plethora of types. All very different. And from that class I still make two of the recipes – the Apple, Blue Cheese, Watercress & Honey Crostini, and the Caramelized Apple Gingerbread. There were another 5 or 6 recipes from that class, but they weren’t as memorable as the above.

The cooking class included information from the apple supplier, Applesource in Chapin, Illinois. You can order all their products online. We sampled 12 varieties that day. I made notes that the Calville Blanc was a French dessert apple (soft, good for Tarte Tatin), that Jonalicious is soft, juicy, high sugar, though. And that I liked the Macoun (like a McIntosh). And I knew I liked Northern Spy. The quote included about that apple was: “There’s no pie like a Spy Pie.”  But there were other types: Matsu, Pink Pearl, Ashmead’s Kernel (tart, firm), Cox’s Orange Pippin (very popular in the U.K., crisp, special aftertaste, but also soft, unlike our American Pippins), Esopus Spitzenberg (supposedly the parent apple of a Jonathan).

So recently I suggested to my friend Cherrie that we share an apple purchase from Applesource. The boxes arrived about 2+ weeks ago, and they’ve been stored in our wine cellar ever since. Every few days I pop down there and pick out a new variety to try. All heirlooms. Many different types than the ones we sampled at the class. All enjoyable. We’re only had four of the 12 so far. And they were on the pricey side, what with shipping and all. The idea (I thought) was that if we found some we really, really liked, maybe I’d order a bigger box of one or more of them. I might still do that, but I must remember that the shipping takes the price way up there in the stratosphere. You really want to be an apple connoisseur to do that. What we ordered was an “Antique Sampler.” They also have a (regular) Sampler of 12 too. The types change with whatever varieties happen to be ripe at the time you order or they ship.

We also ordered their cookbook. I haven’t yet made anything from it, but it’s a nice book and full of many different kinds of dishes, all using apples in one way or another. On Monday I’m going to write up a different kind of apple post – more info about apples in general. So stay tuned if you are an apple lover like I am.