Dan at The Apple Farm October 9, 2006

Dan cut west over the Sonoma hills and headed toward Mendocino. The dark-steel-grey refrigerated FruitGuys truck hummed along as he descended into the Anderson valley, following 128 west through the bumpy sandy brown hills hemmed in by scrub brush, rocky outcroppings of copper-green colored chert and redwood trees. As the radio faded in and out, Dan scrolled through the dial hoping to get something closer to his punk rock heart. He had to settle for country twang. "The sacrifices I make," he muttered under his breath. He pulled onto the dirt road of The Apple Farm in Philo as Tim's black dog came running up to chase the truck. Dan gathered his camera, and snapped a quick picture of the farm dog for his growing collection of "Farm-Dog photos" (which we will be putting up on the website in the next month or so). Dan made his way to Tim, who with his family runs the 20 year old, 15 acre farm. Tim has an "honor system" fruit stand where travelers can purchase fruit, put their money in the bin and make their own change from the wooden cigar box on the table after picking out their produce. Dan and Tim walked through the farm inspecting the apple trees - they were laden with heavy fruit and the branches were held up by long wooden two by fours so they wouldn't break. He tasted a number of varieties and decided on the organic "Philo Gold," a locally named Golden Delicious that has a wonderfully refreshing tart hint to it. Tim and Dan also sampled a number of small organic pears and picked the Bosc. Later, when Dan returned to the FruitGuys and related this story to me, he also told me about the great cooking school that The Apple Farm runs. You can check out their site at: www.philoapplefarm.com

A reminder about the Passion Fruit: I wanted to make sure you knew what that strange looking purple-oval-shaped-fruit was in the crate. That is a passion fruit. Remember it actually gets wrinkly when ripe and can be easily cut in half and spooned out. The aroma and taste is perfumey, sweet, tart and wonderful. Check out the section on our site that explains what each fruit is: www.fruitguys.com/pages/in_the_mix.shtml.
Enjoy and be fruitful!
chris@fruitguys.com