So trivial, yet it really ticks you off.

[tonyb]

Y'all are describing a goodly portion of my neighbors.

Around here, keeping up with the Joneses is among the least of my worries.

 

[Fading Fast]

There are people here who wear those all year round, dead-of-winter included. I can't help but admire their toughness -- either that, or the lack of nerve endings in their feet.

I'm a do-whatever-you-like-as-long-as-you-don't-frighten-the-horses guy, so sandals in the winter - whatever makes you happy. That said, my poor feet would freeze to death.

 

[HudsonHawk]

I carry a "murse" or "man bag" or whatever you want to call it when I'm traveling. It's much easier to carry a few things through the airport that way. And when you might have to wait around 6 or 10 hours at the airport, you'll want to have a few things on you.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Meanwhile, what's a "honeycrisp" apple and what's the big hairy deal about it? Apparently the Boys have convinced a great swath of the public that it's the greatest thing since Pumpkin Spice, which is another annoying marketing gimmick I wish would go away.

As for apples, nothing beats a McIntosh. McIntosh apples are as emblematic of Northern New England as brown eggs and snow tires in October.

 

[2jakes]

You do? In my 55 years as a Californian on this rock I've never heard anyone use the word "polecat" in any context except in a movie or television show.

I hear that word mostly in the small towns that I visit on the
days I go cruising with my
'46 pickup.
Stopping for a " Bar-B-Q"
sandwich which is also very
common along my neck of the woods.

 

[Denton]

Meanwhile, what's a "honeycrisp" apple and what's the big hairy deal about it?

I remember reading a newspaper article years ago (I think this was back in the 80s) about the laboratory at the University of Minnesota that developed the Honeycrisp apple. The excited botanists were describing it as an explosive device that would assault you with "shards of apple flavor." That phrase stuck with me, and I remember it every time I taste a Honeycrisp apple -- always supersweet and with little remarkable apple flavor.

McIntosh is a great apple but it doesn't keep well and maybe doesn't ship well. I like lots of different kinds of apples, leaning to the tart side, Cortland, Macoun, Liberty . . . Once in an orchard in Connecticut I was given something called a Sheep's Nose apple that looked ugly and not really like an apple, but it tasted very nice indeed.

My least favorite thing about living in California might be the substandard apples.

 

[Fading Fast]

I've always preferred Granny Smiths for their tartness and great name.

 

[Lean'n'mean]

The best apples I ever tasted were those I had as a kid when I went scrumping.

 

[Trenchfriend]

Aaah, thats' it!:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honeycrisp

Never heared of this sort.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I hate "sweet" as a flavor. An apple is supposed to be astringent, sour, tart. When I was little I loved to eat crabapples.

 

[Trenchfriend]

I hate "sweet" as a flavor. An apple is supposed to be astringent, sour, tart. When I was little I loved to eat crabapples.

Me too. I prefer not sweet or only sour-mainstream, but rather sweetsour-aromatic.

 

[Fading Fast]

The best apples I ever tasted were those I had as a kid when I went scrumping.

And the only reason I know what "apple scrumping" is, is because of The Who song "5:15 -" which caused me to look the word up as a kid.

Dreadfully sorry
Apple scrumping
Born in a war
Birthday punching​

 

[Inkstainedwretch]

Sometimes the Boys hit a homer. A few decades back, fruit merchants experimentally imported a fuzzy little Asian fruit that looked odd but tasted good. It was the Chinese Gooseberry and they couldn't give them away. Americans weren't about to eat something that looked and sounded so funny. Then some marketing genius decided that all that was needed was a name change. He dubbed it the "Kiwi Fruit" and they sold so well grocers couldn't keep their shelves stocked.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Gooseberry, in certain regional American dialects, refers to an oafish, clumsy stupid person. "A real gooseberry." A more failure-oriented name for a product one could hardly imagine.

 

[Trenchfriend]

Mmmmh, classic Gooseberries. First suck the heavenly sweet with the pips out and then chew the sour peel and gulp it down, as final klingon-fruit-test.

 

[Zombie_61]

It was a favorite of pulp-western writers ninety years ago. "Yuh consarned mangy polecat, reach for your irons!"

Now that you mention it, the only "western" themed novel I've ever read was the one the movie Dances With Wolves was based on, and that was almost a waste of time because the movie was 99.9% faithful to the novel. Regardless, the word "polecat" was not used in either of them.

I hate "sweet" as a flavor. An apple is supposed to be astringent, sour, tart...

This is why I prefer Granny Smith (green) apples--they have that "sour/tart" flavor that offsets and complements the "sweet" flavor so nicely. Apples without that are just boring.

 

[HoosierDaddy]

My favorite apple to bite into (so good that it's hard not to eat even the core) is a 'Gala'. In fact...I'm eating one now...

 

[KILO NOVEMBER]

I hate "sweet" as a flavor. An apple is supposed to be astringent, sour, tart. When I was little I loved to eat crabapples.

Which came first?

 

[LizzieMaine]

My grandparents had a gnarled, misshapen ruin of an apple tree in their backyard. I used to eat the apples off it -- I have no idea what kind of apples they were, probably some kind of forgotten 19th century mutt of an apple, but they were perfect -- sour, crunchy, and not insipid sicky sweet like some of these ones you get today.

That tree has been dead and gone for thirty years, but I would know that taste with one bite if I ever tasted it again.

 

[2jakes]

I used to enjoy corn on the cob as a kid.

Today the corn on the markets is very sweet.
It’s like biting into a piece of chocolate candy that’s
so rich, you can hardly breathe.
I don’t enjoy it anymore.