Science vs. Romance: a brief dissertation
Feb. 12th, 2009 11:51 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
constanceOkay, before I start my entry proper, I want to just say that what I love most about the Georgia Department of Labor, and I love many things about it, is its brevity. Take the title of this form as an example: Employer's Information on Discharge for Failure to Obey Orders, Rules, or Instructions or Failure to Perform the Duties For Which Hired. So nice and tight! Something to aspire to.
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My coworker J (Leonard to my Sheldon) recently proposed a collaborative scientific experiment: a taste test of all apple varieties available to us at our neighborhood Kroger, verifying or refuting the hypothesis that Fujis are the best apples there are. Each afternoon, we cut up one Fuji apple and one other variety, then carefully eat each half, noting differences in taste and texture. Other factors figuring into our analysis are thickness of rind, intrusiveness of core, color of variety, and overall expense. We call our findings back and forth between offices, since we have, like, work which we are paid to do to do. (Man, what a sentence that was.)
And the results are in: Fujis are indeed The Best Apples There Are, and this in spite of the fact that Kroger never, ever puts them on sale. We are in full agreement on the deliciousness and value of Fujis, though we both own that there are adequate substitutes. I like Ambrosias, if we're going for expensive varieties, and J prefers Honeycrisps in that same category. In the Oh-Look-They're-On-Sale category, we're both kind of equally partial to Braeburns and Jonagolds, and I like Galas well enough, but J really doesn't.
This is how we've been spending our afternoons, and it's been very satisfying, and that's not even taking into account that we have proved to our equal satisfaction that Fuji apples are Totally Worth It, but a few nights ago I conducted a further secret experiment in the privacy of my own home, when I was putting away groceries and realized that it had been maybe thirty years since the last time I'd eaten my childhood favorite snack, an apple quartered with peanut butter spread over the quarters. (In a related aside, I've been inexplicably craving peanut butter lately.) And so I made one, just to see if they're as good as I remembered them.
And they are, my God. A little messy, but one bite and I was eight years old again, the taste memory was that overpoweringly beloved. And as much as I love apples, and possibly you've guessed by this point that I do in fact love them, they are even better with peanut butter. Exponentially better. I might even go so far as to say infinitely better, even if matters of the infinite are not mathematically provable. I'm not sure why I'm being struck by this now, decades later. Maybe it's my recent obsession with peanut butter; maybe it's the judicious application of The Best Apples There Are to peanut butter; maybe it's just my memories of childhood fucking around with me. Who knows? I'd feel that further experimentation is in order, but I'm not quite sure how to test for the intrusion of childhood memory. Maybe sometimes it's best to let science slide and go with your instincts. And then again, maybe we should forget I ever wrote that sentence.
So. Anyway. Guess what I'm having for lunch today?
:::
My coworker J (Leonard to my Sheldon) recently proposed a collaborative scientific experiment: a taste test of all apple varieties available to us at our neighborhood Kroger, verifying or refuting the hypothesis that Fujis are the best apples there are. Each afternoon, we cut up one Fuji apple and one other variety, then carefully eat each half, noting differences in taste and texture. Other factors figuring into our analysis are thickness of rind, intrusiveness of core, color of variety, and overall expense. We call our findings back and forth between offices, since we have, like, work which we are paid to do to do. (Man, what a sentence that was.)
And the results are in: Fujis are indeed The Best Apples There Are, and this in spite of the fact that Kroger never, ever puts them on sale. We are in full agreement on the deliciousness and value of Fujis, though we both own that there are adequate substitutes. I like Ambrosias, if we're going for expensive varieties, and J prefers Honeycrisps in that same category. In the Oh-Look-They're-On-Sale category, we're both kind of equally partial to Braeburns and Jonagolds, and I like Galas well enough, but J really doesn't.
This is how we've been spending our afternoons, and it's been very satisfying, and that's not even taking into account that we have proved to our equal satisfaction that Fuji apples are Totally Worth It, but a few nights ago I conducted a further secret experiment in the privacy of my own home, when I was putting away groceries and realized that it had been maybe thirty years since the last time I'd eaten my childhood favorite snack, an apple quartered with peanut butter spread over the quarters. (In a related aside, I've been inexplicably craving peanut butter lately.) And so I made one, just to see if they're as good as I remembered them.
And they are, my God. A little messy, but one bite and I was eight years old again, the taste memory was that overpoweringly beloved. And as much as I love apples, and possibly you've guessed by this point that I do in fact love them, they are even better with peanut butter. Exponentially better. I might even go so far as to say infinitely better, even if matters of the infinite are not mathematically provable. I'm not sure why I'm being struck by this now, decades later. Maybe it's my recent obsession with peanut butter; maybe it's the judicious application of The Best Apples There Are to peanut butter; maybe it's just my memories of childhood fucking around with me. Who knows? I'd feel that further experimentation is in order, but I'm not quite sure how to test for the intrusion of childhood memory. Maybe sometimes it's best to let science slide and go with your instincts. And then again, maybe we should forget I ever wrote that sentence.
So. Anyway. Guess what I'm having for lunch today?
no subject
Date: 2009-02-13 05:32 pm (UTC)Granny Smiths are good for cooking. They have a firm structure that can stand up to a lot. I like them OK for eating, but I prefer a sweeter apple if I have the choice. OTOH, Grannies are utterly dependable. To my mind, it's seldom the best apple, but it's never the worst. I'll always choose a reliable Granny over an iffy Delicious, for instance.
A friend taught me the trick of using multiple apple varieties when making pies. If you mix three or four kinds, you get a nice variation of flavor and texture in what can otherwise be a bit bland, pie-wise. The trick is getting the pieces similar in size.
Apples and peanut butter are delicious. As is celery with peanut butter. Aren't Georgia residents required to eat a certain amout of peanut butter each year to keep up the crop?
no subject
Date: 2009-02-13 06:32 pm (UTC)Granny Smiths also wear really well. In my experience, they get old and dried-out much more slowly than other varieties.
What good advice for pie-baking! I'll have to keep that in mind for the next time I make an apple pie.
And I am trying to do my part to keep the peanut economy afloat in GA. What I don't eat in boiled peanuts (cannot bear them) I totally make up for with my recently accelerated peanut butter consumption.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-14 03:01 pm (UTC)I have never had the nerve to try boiled peanuts. We kept running into them at every gas station on I-95 south of Richmond, but I just couldn't make the leap. (Leit ate lots of BBQ pork rinds, though.)