These days my favorite way to enjoy an apple is to get up early, wrap myself in a kimono and walk outside toward one of the apple trees that surround my home in west Sebastopol. I reach for the ripest-looking fruit and if it falls into my hand with little coaxing, I understand that I am in for a treat.
Listening to the mockingbirds? morning serenade, I lift the dew-drenched fruit toward my mouth, take that first bite and let the cool juices flood my palate.
Ahh, Sebastopol, in the middle of summer.
Apples have always provided a private, singular, pristine pleasure. It?s not the aroma of an apple pie or the lusciousness of a warm apple turnover that fills me with nostalgic pleasure. Rather, it is a moment here and a moment there, alone or nearly so, spread over a lifetime.
Three apples stand out among the hundreds I have enjoyed. There?s the green Pippin that I ate as I leaned against my mother watching the ?Walt Disney Show? while recovering from some childhood illness. Although I was not yet 4, the memory of the taste is so vivid it could have been yesterday that I savored it.
There?s the Red Delicious from a grocery store in Vallejo one Halloween night just before heading out for a night of trick-or-treating. It had an irresistible perfume and I devoured it in the car as my mother drove the short distance to our house.
It would be decades before I encountered an apple as delightful as those two. But in the fall of 2002, a year after my friends Jim and John had bought Dos Reis, a 15-acre apple farm not far from where I live, we were strolling the rows of old carefully pruned trees, heavy with ripe fruit.
One tree caught my eye.
It was a loner, leaning against the barn away from the others, gnarled and sickly looking, hardly a tree at all. It seemed more a collection of ancient branches, many of them broken. Hanging from the frail branches were a few scarlet spheres, shimmering in the afternoon sun; they seemed like gifts from unknown ancestors, the ones who once tended the long-neglected tree.
It was a Red Delicious, John said, a variety that does not have a reputation for either great taste or pleasing texture.
At home that night, I took a bite of one of the apples and my mouth was instantly filled with delicious flavors, of the Red Delicious that thrived in spite of decades of neglect and of all those apples that have left their juicy, fragrant trail in my memory and in my heart.
Now is the time to enjoy our Gravenstein apples. The Gravenstein is reliably delicious, one of the most flavorful apples in the world. It is also the most ephemeral of apples; it softens quickly and is not built for storage, as later apples are. It will be celebrated on Sunday at the Sebastopol farmers market.
For years I enjoyed the blood sausage served with sauteed apples and potatoes at San Francisco?s South Park Cafe (108 South Park), a wonderful little place that is like a short trip to Paris. It is easy to make at home.
Boudin Noir with Apples and Potatoes
Makes 3 to 4 servings
1pound new red potatoes, scrubbed and cut into thick wedges
?Kosher salt
?Juice of 1 lemon
3 to 4apples, preferably Gravensteins
6 to 8boudin noir (blood sausage), see Note below
3cups white wine
4tablespoons butter
?Black pepper in a mill
3tablespoons brandy or Calvados
2 to 3handfuls watercress or arugula
Put the potatoes in a saucepan, cover with water, add a generous tablespoon of salt and bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce the heat and simmer gently for about 10 minutes. Drain and spread in a single layer on a sheet pan or plate. Set aside.
Fill a bowl half full with water and add the lemon juice.
Peel and core the apples and cut them into thick wedges roughly the same size as the potato wedges; drop them into the lemon water and set aside.
Preheat the oven to 200 degrees.
Put the boudin noir into a heavy saute pan, add the wine and set over medium high heat. Poach the sausages, turning them in the wine now and then, until they firm up, about 10 minutes. Transfer the sausages to a serving platter and put the plate in the oven. Discard the poaching liquid.
Drain the apples and pat them dry with a tea towel.
Return the saute pan to the heat, add 3 tablespoons of the butter and when it is melted add the potatoes and apples. Saute, turning now and then, until both are evenly browned and tender. Season with salt and pepper.
Remove the sausages from the oven and add the sauteed potatoes and apples to the platter.
Return the pan to the heat, add the brandy or Calvados and swirl the pan to pick up the drippings. Season with salt and pepper, add the remaining butter and swirl gently until the butter is just melted. Pour over the potatoes and apples. Add the watercress or arugula to the platter and serve immediately.
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