A couple weeks ago, I wrote about some of the apples Rudi and I brought home with us from Vermont, and tonight we had tasting #2:

Pictured above (with Welsh cheddar this time), you’ll find the last few slices of (clockwise, from the bottom) Knobbed Russet, Northern Spy, Ashmead’s Kernel, Pristine, and Sheepnose.

Knobbed Russets are particularly ugly apples, misshapen and with unpleasantly rough, bumpy skin, but their outward appearance masks an ideal eating apple, simultaneously sweet and tart and delicious. They were my favorite, followed by Ashmead’s Kernel, the other russet.

Northern Spy (the biggest apple we sampled tonight), is a solid, crisp eating apple and probably the most commonly known of the bunch. You’d be hard-pressed to go wrong selecting this one for munching on.

Pristine, a pretty, yellow apple, was also crunchy, but as its name suggests, had a very clean taste. If a single apple could embody the taste of generic apple juice, this would be it. Nice enough, but not especially memorable.

Sheepnose (which originated in Connecticut around 1800 and is also known as Black Gilliflower) had the best name, but was the most disappointing snack, with a mushy, quick-to-breakdown texture. Now, to be fair to the process, these apples have been sitting on my counter for weeks, so it’s clearly not an ideal environment for softer varieties. And it still had a nice taste that Rudi and I agreed would probably work quite well in a cooked dessert.

Three beautiful things from our past week:

1. We eat four of the apples we brought back from Vermont tonight, and one of them, Hidden Rose, has pink flesh. The others are the small Lamb Abbey, the oddly shaped Calville Blanc d’Hiver, and the red Mollie(‘)s Delicious. My favorite is the Calville, which is sweetly tart and crisp.

2. We arrive at the ocean two days after the remnants of a tropical storm have passed through. Surfers are plentiful, but it’s with a start, after overhearing a comment, that I realize what I originally thought was a class of wetsuit-clad boarders is actually a pod of 50 or so seals body-surfing in the breakers.

3. A daddy long-legs has gotten wet and can’t escape the campground bathroom sink. I offer it a literal helping hand and it climbs out and up onto the tap, where it proceeds to shake its legs off and lick (or something that looks similar) them dry.

How about you? What’s been beautiful in your world this week?

Three beautiful things from our past week:

1. Sam & Alexis’ son, Max, is merely three weeks old when we get the chance to visit. He is adorable and tiny and neither Rudi nor I break him while we hold him.

2. Last year, our fall road trip to New England came after the peak foliage season here had passed. This year, we’re in the midst of it and have seen some gorgeous color:

3. Just as I say, “Gosh, if it were six hours later, there would be a rainbow with this rain,” I spy a noon rainbow just over the horizon.

How about you? What’s been beautiful in your world this week?

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. A couple blocks away lives a painter who frequently works on his front patio. This week, I notice that the bush behind where his easel stands is flecked with sky blue and neon green speckles.

2. Just after passing a shop window filled with boring neutrals, I notice a woman crossing the street wearing a shimmering magenta headscarf.

3. Rudi and I headed to the DelMarVa peninsula for a weekend of camping, bike riding, and frolicking at the beach. We were also treated to three evenings of breathtaking sunsets, including this one, which shows the Assateague Light and a crescent moon, as seen from our campsite on Chincoteague (of the Misty books):

How about you? What’s been beautiful in your world this week?

I’m writing from Connecticut, where I’m spending a busy week at my parents’ house, working remotely and hanging out with my grandmother and the family pets while my folks are visiting my brother on the other side of the country.

Here are three beautiful things from my time here this week:

1. My folks have a hummingbird feeder and at least two species (one green and one black) who zoom around the house on a daily basis, drinking deeply from my mother’s flowers. It’s impressive how chatty they are and how curious.

2. What I thought were several ticks on the dog’s leg turn out to be small, round burrs. I’ve never been so glad to be wrong.

3. Coming north means that blueberries are still in season here. Gramma and I have been enjoying them as a daily afternoon snack.

How about you? What’s been beautiful in your world this week?

As I mentioned on Friday night, we headed up to New York City for a mini vacation.

We caught the bus up on Sunday morning and arrived shortly after noon. We wandered around Times Square for a bit, catching part of the Dominican Pride Parade and EcoFest before heading to Broadway for our first show of the day, Bullets over Broadway, starring Zach Braff (from Scrubs and Garden State). Luckily, when I first heard about the show, I hadn’t realized it was a Woody Allen piece, because I wouldn’t have agreed to give him my money if I had. That notwithstanding, I really enjoyed the musical about a writer looking to stage a pure version of his play until he discovers that it’s only going to be produced because a gangster’s girlfriend wants to be a star.

Because it was Sunday, most theaters were dark that night, but Rudi discovered Rock of Ages, about the Sunset Strip in the mid-’80s, was playing and procured us tickets. I enjoyed singing along with all the heavy metal tunes/power ballads of our youth and found the characters likeable, but was not enamored of the rather misogynistic storyline.

We stayed on the Upper West Side at the Hotel Belleclaire, which I highly recommend. The room was large and comfortable, and the neighborhood is quiet, located a short walk from Central Park and several museums, and located doors away from an all-night bakery/deli that sold decent tea and a French bakery that offered a raspberry almond croissant that was to die for.

We headed to Central Park first thing for a late breakfast picnic and stroll, which ended with a surprise meeting with my cousin, who was joining classmates for a pre-finals picnic.

We partook ourselves of CitiBike and biked down to the High Line, the elevated-freight-rail-line-turned-park. We walked south along the park, stopping along the way for slices and local soda, caffeinated beverages, beer, and popsicles, as well as a quick romp through the water feature and the admiration of art and plants.

The park runs down to Chelsea, so we walked from there to the Village to buy coffee beans and tea leaves from some of our favorite purveyors and to shop at some of the record and cd stores that still exist there, before hopping back on bikes to head down to The Battery (at the tip of Manhattan) to meet Eri and Eric for a delicious dinner with a view of the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. We biked past the new skyscraper at the World Trade Center site. (It is MASSIVE; you can’t actually see the top of it when you’re standing at street level next to it.) After dinner, the four of us walked back to Midtown along the river, chatting and catching up. It was a really good day, full of food, parks, and friends — and by the time we reached the hotel in the wee smalls, we were exhausted.

Today, I, at least, was lagging a bit. We slept in, which meant we didn’t get back to Central Park, the way I’d idealistically hoped to, checked out of the hotel, and lugged our bags down to Herald Square to meet Eric, who suggested we park our bags with his concierge. Less encumbered, we biked down to Chinatown, where he introduced us to an Australian café he’d discovered.

While we mulled over how to pass our final few hours in the city, it started to rain a bit, and, not wanting to be forced to sit in sopping wet clothes (I hadn’t brought a second pair of pants/skirt/shorts to change into), we opted not to bike over to Brooklyn to see the new parks they’re building out of defunct piers. Instead, we took a leisurely stroll through SoHo and other neighborhoods on the Lower West Side, chatting our way back to Times Square and our bus. Eri, who’d had a late afternoon work meeting, raced back uptown, arriving just minutes before we boarded to head home and letting us end our vacation with hugs and friendly faces waving us off.