"How Do You Like Them Apples?"

By Jerry Zezima

An apple a day keeps the doctor away, but if I keep eating apples every day, I’ll need a doctor because I am full of apples right up to my — you guessed it — Adam’s apple.

I have been consuming the fruits of my labors since my wife, Sue, and I went apple picking and carted home a bag full of apples, 42 in all, that I am eating every day in some form or another.

I have an apple — Gala, Delicious, Macoun or Granny Smith, all from the orchard — for dessert at lunch. I also consume a bowl of the apple crisp that Sue made for dessert at dinner. And she just made an apple-cinnamon bread pudding for when the apple crisp is finally finished.

In our house, apples are like the biblical tale of the loaves and the fishes: Eat one and two more appear.

You’ve heard of Johnny Appleseed. I’m his cousin twice removed, Jerry Applehead.

Actually, I love apples. And I like to go apple picking, which we do every year. Last year, I was hit in the eye by an apple that fell from a high perch and could have blinded me. I wasn’t hurt, but I ended up being the apple of my own eye.

This year, I wasn’t subjected to an apple attack, though I came perilously close to rupturing a vital organ while lugging a heavy bag of juicy, ripe fruit around the orchard. And the circulation in my fingers was nearly cut off while holding the bag by the handles.

But that didn’t stop me from sampling apples — for sustenance, of course — while traipsing among the trees and trying to avoid the hordes of other people who had the same idea.

Apple picking is a family tradition that dates back to when our two daughters were kids. And it has continued with their kids, who love adding apples to my bag or my basket, which is even harder to lug around, and watching the top ones fall out and roll away. Sometimes I step on them and create instant applesauce, one of the many fine recipes that can be created when the apple pickers get home.

Others include apple pie, apple cookies, apple muffins, apple cobbler, apple bread, apple strudel, apple tart, apple fritters, apple rolls, apple betty, apple galette, apple dumplings, apple scones, apple pancakes, apple butter, apple chips, baked apples, candied apples and apple sausage, which Sue just made for dinner, although she bought it at a store.

It’s enough to make you want to have a good stiff drink of applejack.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention other pick-them-yourself fruits, which include strawberries, peaches and, the autumn favorite, pumpkins.

Farm stands invariably have road signs that proclaim: “Pick your own.” I have been tempted to get out of the car and, in bold letters, write: “Nose.”

Sue always stops me.

A couple of years ago, I met the Strawberry Whisperer, a woman with a large personalized basket, festooned with drawings of strawberries, into which she put a mound of berries the size of bocce balls.

The ones I picked, which I plunked into a pathetic little basket provided by the farm, looked like glorified raisins.

“You have to pick from underneath,” she advised me. “The big ripe ones like to hide.”

I didn’t blame them.

Pumpkins are more practical because you need only one, although you will have to carry it about half a mile to your car. Once you get home and put it by the front door, the squirrels will eat it.

Of course, you can always grab a steak knife and risk severing a major artery while carving a scary face in the pumpkin for Halloween. If you put a candle inside, it will illuminate the blood stains.

But for now, we have all those apples to finish. I may have to call a doctor after all.

Copyright 2023 by Jerry Zezima