Get Back!

Here’s the thing about modern living. At 40 years old, I can form a rock band that gets top billing in my living room. Rehearsals are quick, and I tower over my band mates who barely crest four feet, but hey, as long as my drummer, singer, and guitarist gets their homework done before dinnertime, it’s on!! We’re rocking out on the Wii as if we are standing on the Apple Studio rooftop, decked out in long coats and putting on our best Beatles version of “Get Back.”

As we sing along with Paul, who belts out, “Get back! Get back! Get back to where you once belonged . . . ” I can’t help but wonder if I’m participating in a sort of cultural Twinkie. I mean, what would Henry David Thoreau – the 19th Century American thinker who left society and got back to nature by going into the woods of Walden to “live deliberately” – would think of us right now as we push four keys on a fake guitar while making “real music” that isn’t really ours and feeling nostalgic for a time that we never experienced.

The changes to food since The Beatles played their last set are tremendous. Getting back to what is healthy can be tough in a world of misinformation when marketers try to make you feel you are eating something healthy and real, when you may not be, I like author Michael Pollen’s rule of thumb that you don’t want to eat anything that your great-great-grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food. In this vein, we work with local farmers by region to get back to great, fresh, healthy, unique (and as local as possible) fruit. This week-whether you are on the west coast, mid-west, or east coast-we have unique and old school apples from small family farmers in each region. From Grass Valley, CA, we have my favorite apple, the Arkansas Black Apple from Chris Bierwagen. A descendant of the Winesap Apple discovered in Benton County, Arkansas in 1870; the Arkansas Black has a cherry flavor to it. From Lehman’s Orchards in Michigan, we have lovely Ambrosia, Macoun, and Empire Apples, and on the east coast, we have Ginger Gold Apples from a farm in Pennsylvania.

See this week’s mix. Enjoy and be fruitful!  chiefbanana@fruitguys.com