Friday, September 21, 2007

A New Food (but I'm the last to discover it!)

Ha, ha, ha - I love a good laugh, even at my expense. :-)

My husband and I stopped at a little farm stand on the west side of Michigan this week, looking at all the varieties of apples. The woman working at the stand urged us to try the Honeycrisp apple. We were hesitant. Why? They were enormous, there were only three of them in the basket, plus they weren't beautiful. The woman was very surprised that we had not heard of this variety. She even assured us that they were Oprah's favorite apple and that Oprah herself had even stopped at that farm stand. (!!) Hmmmmmmm.......... Well, ok, I suppose anything is possible, and I'll try anything once.

When we got back to the cottage we were renting for the week, we washed one and cut it into at least a dozen slices (I told you they were large!). Well, I was humbled; yes, it was startlingly delicious, not too sweet and with a great crisp texture.

Imagine our surprise when we later talked to both of our sons to tell them about this apple and both of them (yes, BOTH of them!) told us that they know all about these apples. Well, what planet have we been on that we have missed this variety? I just had to laugh and laugh and laugh. One son works at Whole Foods and said that his store has 15-16 varieties of apples in their produce section and that they sell one Honeycrisp for each of every other variety they sell on a daily basis. Our other son said he has been buying Honeycrisp at his Farmers' Market for years, but he knows that you have to get there early to get them as they are sold out of that variety in the first hour of sales.

Well, as I said, I just laughed and laughed and laughed. Yes, what planet have I been on? Maybe this just proves the point about my own advice - get down to your local Farmers' Market (early!), farm stand, or local grocery store and look for something new to try in the produce section. I'm thinking that there are just so many foods to try that it is a challenge to find them all. However, that won't stop me from trying.

Mostly I'm just so proud that my boys appreciate real food. Years and years ago when my boys were still quite young, I had a friend tell me she was amazed that I actually spent so much time and energy to make so much of our food from scratch. Having my boys know more than I did about this variety of apple has made all the time and effort that I put into cooking real food worthwhile. :-)

What new food have you tried recently?

Diana Dyer, MS, RD

1 comment:

Ed Bruske said...

Honey crisp is our favorite now. There are always hundreds of new apples being hybridized and tested. Only a few, such as honey crisp, make it to market.