I love apples. 
Not to Agatha Christie levels – I don’t go around with spare bags of apples in the back seat of my car, or cached in every room of the house. And, unlike Christie, I certainly don’t eat them while taking a bath. Apparently, Dame Agatha claimed to do her best writing in a bathtub – the old fashioned kind with a convenient ledge to rest her apples on.  But of the commonly available fruits that I’m allowed to eat, apples are fairly high on my list.

Were it possible, peaches would probably be number one. However, I live in Los Angeles, a city where the inhabitants prize form over substance, covet labels above content or quality, and cherish price more than value. Appearances are like gods to most Angelenos, and the peaches commonly found in our supermarkets are prime examples. The scent is divine – the summery, musky, peach-y smell captivates anyone who passes within twenty feet the produce section. At the mere sight of those artfully arranged piles of delicately colored fruits, their warm sun-kissed fuzz tinted with just a hint of pink, your salivary glands go into hyper-drive at the thought of sinking your teeth into that succulent flesh, and the taste of the sweet juices as they burst into your mouth and trickle down your chin. 

Until, of course, you succumb to your naivete, buy one, and take a bite. Your reward is likely to be a mouthful of rock-hard, bland fruit that, if it has any taste at all is reminiscent of the bitterest of unripe limes. (And believe me, we get those too.) What is truly astonishing -- and in a strange way, it is a quintessentially LA “thing” – is that you can also find unripe jicama, something I honestly did not believe could possibly exist until I tasted one. 

Los Angeles supermarkets are infamous for featuring fruit that are beautiful enough to pose as  the centerfolds of an erotic agricultural calendar. Our urban scavengers – those people who poverty, or a commitment to conserving resources, compels to forage for food in the garbage bins behind markets and grocery stores – can find a veritable treasure trove of perfectly good produce, tossed away solely because it does not meet the Southern California standards of Fruit & Veggie Beauty. 

But that’s how we roll around here. And it’s not such a stretch when you consider how many people living between the 110 freeway and the Pacific ocean refer to their communities as being “Beverly Hills Adjacent” rather than admit to the shame of not living in Beverly Hills itself. We may not personally hob-nob with the Hollywood elite, or with the billionaires that are as ubiquitous as the dog poop in those neighborhoods east of La Brea that lack the sophistication of pooper-scooper ordinances, but by god, our fruits and vegetables had better look the part! 

But I digress. What I meant to say was that, of the commonly available fruits that I'm allowed to eat, apples are definitely toward the top of my list.  Grapefruit – which, oddly enough, I despised as a child – is my absolute favorite. However, I suffer from a kind of neuropathy in my left leg, and the only medication that relieves the pain was developed as an anti-depressant. Apparently, if you eat grapefruit while taking it, it is the functional equivalent to downing a glass of cyanide. To add insult to injury, our neighbor who lives two doors down grows pomelos in her yard  – the Mona Lisa of grapefruits! – and she’s always offering us bags of them because her tree produces too many. 

My other favorite fruits are, sadly, just not around that much or, if they are, they’re not available in edible form – at least not in my neck of the woods. Lychees are not only seasonal, but their season is shorter than Taylor Lautner’s career. Loquats are a good substitute and, believe it or not, “orphan” loquat trees that seem to spring up all by themselves are common around here.
 Or, at least, they used to be. 

When I first moved to LA, I was astonished by how much fruit grew wild along the streets and sidewalks. Virtually every block featured at least one citrus tree – and often many more – with fruit-laden branches exploding over the homeowners’ fences. Passion fruit vines, with flowers that looked like alien spaceships, were sometimes considered weeds due to their propensity to engulf detached garages and drop juice-engorged fruit onto the sidewalks. Some groceries did not bother to stock rosemary because of the massive rosemary hedges in front of most apartment buildings. You could easily find wild fennel growing by the side of almost any canyon road, and ripe pink peppercorns fell so thickly on certain sidewalks that walking could be hazardous. The not-very-well-kept secret of a certain mini-mall was that parking lot was lined with “bushes” that, at certain times each year, would produce so many guava that locals in-the-know could fill bag after bag with the ripe fruit, and the retail stores would still give away free guavas with each purchase. And on Santa Monica Boulevard, there was a gas station with a center island that overflowed with mint plants that persisted in growing to knee-height no matter how many times they were cut back.

Then the real estate developers came, and all of those lovely fruit trees, and herbs, and wild vegetables were ripped out and replaced with high-rise condos, and apartment buildings where a small studio leases at $6500/month. Our Gardens of Eden (including Alla Nazimova’s former Gardens of Allah) were all bulldozed, initially to build adjacent McDonalds and Jennie Craig Centers which, in turn, eventually perished themselves to make way for the bizarre and supposedly innovative chimeras known as “mixed use” projects – many of which still remain virtually empty and unleased a decade after construction. Now, one of the few remaining wild loquat trees is in Runyan Canyon – zealously guarded by the locals in the wake of an elderly Asian woman showing up with a ladder one morning, and stripping the entire tree bare of fruit. 

As for the guava, they have mysteriously vanished – even from the ethnic markets. One can still find hard, undersized, green, flavorless guava at Vallarta or El Super from time to time. But the delicious, pink or orange fleshed fruit we used to find growing wild are virtually extinct. You can still find both papaya and Asian pears fairly easily. The trick, though, is finding good ones.

Most of the papayas we commonly get in the Los Angeles area anymore are from Mexico. We used to get them from Central America – dark, rosey-orange fleshed fruits with a strong floral aroma and a delightful, almost musky taste. You’d split one in half, scoop out the seeds, drizzle it with a bit of lime juice, and you’d made yourself a bright, perky appetizer or a satisfying dessert. You could spoon it up like pudding. But, now? What earthly need could anyone have for a papaya as big as a tuba, and as hard as a cinder block? Fortunately, the situation with Asian pears is not quite so dire. You can still get them, though the days of three for ninety-nine cents have gone the way of gas lighting and the buggy whip. Of course, you can’t eat them right away; they’ll taste like stale celery. But if you’re willing to loom over them like vultures for a few days until they’re ripe – you can tell by the change in smell, you’ve gotten yourself a real treat.

What all this boils down to is that, in our house, apples are the go-to fruit. We usually keep bananas on hand as well, as I have a mild potassium deficiency, and bananas are one of the few potassium-rich foods that I don’t mind eating on a more-or-less daily basis. I’ve even found a recipe for banana bread made with only one banana – to account for the last, lonely banana that always seems to turn brown before you’ve had a chance to finish the bunch. And, depending on whether the current strawberry crop is good or not (there is apparently something called an “ever-growing” strawberry which, although it yields a new crop every few months, can vary widely in the quality of the fruit), we will likely keep at least a pound or two in the fridge. The trick here though, is to find berries that are ripe – but not so ripe that they’re moldy. Sadly, the time window is usually even shorter than a Golden Girls spin-off. 

So, for now, apples are kind of my “thing”. Not just any apples, mind you – because I’ve become somewhat of a snob, and I have "preferred varietals" now. Show me a Kiku or a Pacific Rose, and I’m in apple nirvana. Hand me a Red Delicious or a Macintosh, and I’d rather snack on a cucumber. Unfortunately, for the past couple of years, many varietals have become harder to find. 

It seems like the days of the fresh fruit basket on the dining room table, and the traditional cornucopia, are fading – at least in this country. In Paris, we were astounded and delighted by the fruits that were available. You had to be selective, and pick those that were ripe – but you could find perfectly ripe fruit and, when you did, it was absolute heaven. Back in Southern California, however, I’ve had to plant my own guava tree. In fact, I planted two – a Mexican Cream in the back yard, and a Pineapple Guava in the front. In spite of my notorious Black Thumb – I’ve killed mint – they seem to be doing okay so far. No fruit yet, but I planted them two years ago, and they still sprout leaves and haven’t dried into kindling. 		

So, I’m optimistic – cautiously so. One day, in the not-too-distant future, I may be able to feast on guava grown in my own back yard. 
Pray for me.