I’m not a big apple eater. One of the reasons is that I rarely encounter an eating apple that has just the right flavor and texture.

First, apples should actually taste like something besides vaguely flavored cardboard. I like my apples on the tart side, but not too tart (Jonathan apples, for example, are great for pies, but sometimes a bit too tart to eat plain). They have to be really crisp. The slightest touch of softness or mealiness turns me off. (McIntosh apples taste great, but lack the crispness I crave.)

Granny Smith, Gala and Fuji apples come very close—when you get a good one. Increasingly, too many of them are not that good.

That is why I’m always on the lookout for “new” apples. I was in Michigan a couple of weekends ago and saw a sign for Honeycrisp apples, a variety that was new to me. I bit into one, and suddenly I love apples again.

The Honeycrisp, a pretty red and green freckled apple, is fairly tart, but still with a good amount of sweetness. And it is one of the crispest apples I’ve tried.

A cross between the Macoun and the Honeygold, the Honeycrisp was developed in 1960, but has been commercially grown in the Midwest only in the past decade. It’s still hard to find outside of orchards and farm markets in season (September-October), though you can order it online at Honeycrisp.com.

If you’re anywhere where this tasty apple is being sold, grab it while you can. It’s a keeper.

“Ah!” I shrieked. My husband stomped on the brakes, wondering if we were about to hit something.

“Look!” I said. “The pie cherries are in!”

We were in Michigan, dropping our daughter off for camp, and were passing a roadside farm stand. There it was: “Pie Cherries, 99 cents a pound.” I was lucky; the season was running a bit earlier than usual.

The Michigan sour cherry season is brief, only a couple of weeks in July. Most of the sour cherries are sold to food processors to be canned, frozen and turned into ready-made baked goods. Those that are sold fresh are highly perishable. Because they’re meant to be cooked, pie cherries are softer than the standard sweet cherries like Bing, and deteriorate rapidly. You have to buy them, pit them, and use them within about 24 hours.

Toss in the facts that so few people make fruit pies from scratch these days and that pitting cherries by hand is tedious work, and it’s no surprise that fresh pie cherries are getting increasingly harder to find.

This year, they were well worth seeking out—the pie cherries I bought were outstanding, bursting with flavor. I ate plenty of them as is, and put the rest into my famous cherry pie, an eagerly awaited annual ritual in our family.

You can make this pie with frozen, thawed or canned cherries (unsweetened, not cherry pie filling), but fresh cherries are the best.

Rather make a cobbler? Check out my fresh cherry cobbler recipe.

Fresh Cherry Pie

Makes 6 to 8 servings

Crust:
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons chilled unsalted butter, cut into bits
1/2 cup chilled vegetable shortening, cut into bits
4 to 5 tablespoons ice water

Filling:
5 cups pitted fresh sour (pie) cherries
2 1/2 tablespoons quick-cooking (fine-grained) tapioca, or cornstarch
1 cup sugar
2 tablespoons Kirsch (cherry brandy) and/or 1/2 teaspoon almond extract

Make the crust: Whisk together the flour and salt. Cut in the butter and shortening until well-blended; mixture should be coarse and mealy. Stir in enough water so that dough just comes together in a ball.

Press dough into a disk, wrap in plastic wrap, and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.

Divide dough into 2 parts, one slightly larger than the other. Roll out the larger portion on a lightly floured board or pastry cloth to a circle about 11 inches in diameter.

Drape dough over rolling pin and ease it into a 9-inch pie pan. Press the dough gently into the bottom of the pan and trim the edges. Refrigerate while you prepare the filling.

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F.

To make the filling: Combine cherries and their juice (if using canned or frozen, thawed cherries, use 3/4 cup of the juice) with tapioca or cornstarch, sugar, and Kirsch and/or almond extract.

Pour the cherries into the prepared pie shell.

Roll out the remaining pastry to 1/8-inch thickness. With a biscuit or cookie cutter, cut into rounds or other shapes (stars are nice). Arrange the cutouts in overlapping circles atop the cherry filling.

Bake for 15 minutes, then reduce the heat to 350 degrees and bake for another 35 to 45 minutes, or until the crust is browned and the filling is bubbly.

Serve slightly warm, with vanilla ice cream.

Makes 6 to 8 servings.

Much to my delight, I realized today that I have the makings of a Cobb Salad on hand. This hearty mix of lettuce, eggs, bacon, avocados, tomatoes and blue cheese is my favorite salad meal. It seems to have fallen out of favor during the 1990s low-fat craze, but recently I’ve noticed it on more restaurant menus.

Cobb salad is named for Bob Cobb, who was owner of Hollywood’s legendary Brown Derby Restaurant in the 1930s. Legend has it that he invented the salad one night in 1937 out of leftovers he rummaged from the kitchen. Or maybe he invented it in 1929. Or maybe his chef really invented it. Whatever the case, it quickly caught on.

Some restaurants serve Cobb Salad with blue cheese or ranch dressing, but I consider that overkill. The blue cheese should be lightly crumbled into the salad, which is dressed with a vinaigrette. Cobb Salad does require that you plan ahead; the bacon, eggs and chicken need to be cooked and cooled before you toss the salad together.

Whisk together your own vinaigrette out of white wine vinegar, olive oil and a bit of dry mustard, or use your favorite store-bought vinaigrette.

Serve this with a little Italian or French bread and some iced tea and you’ve got a simple, satisfying dinner.

Cobb Salad

Makes 2 servings

2 strips crisp-cooked bacon
2 hard-cooked (boiled) eggs
1 medium avocado
1 medium tomato
1/2 medium head iceberg lettuce
1/4 cup crumbled blue cheese
1/2 cup chopped celery or 1/4 cup chopped green onions (optional)
Vinaigrette (homemade or store-bought)

Crumble the bacon. Coarsely chop the eggs. Peel and pit the avocado, then coarsely chop. Chop and seed the tomato.

Tear or chop the lettuce into bite-size pieces. Divide between 2 dinner plates. Sprinkle the bacon, eggs, avocado, tomato, blue cheese and celery over the lettuce and toss. Add vinaigrette to taste and toss again.

Serve immediately.

The massive recall of pet foods containing wheat gluten contaminated with melamine, an industrial chemical, has focused attention on an issue most of us would rather not think about: the heightened food safety risks that come with widespread importing of foodstuffs.

As demand for its food products has exploded, China has tried to improve food safety. But it’s difficult in a land where there are so many scattered small family farms and pressure to keep up with the ever increasing demand. Drugged farmed animals, industrial pollutants, overuse of pesticides, cutting corners to save costs—all have led to food scandals in China and abroad. (In one of the more notorious cases, substandard infant formula caused malnutrition in hundreds of babies and killed at least 12.) Europe, Japan and even Hong Kong have banned some Chinese food imports.

Americans treat their pets like children, and a scandal of this magnitude will hopefully exert pressure on Chinese suppliers and the American companies that deal with them to tighten the controls.

But this may also be a good time to question why we are importing so much of our food. Does anyone else find it ironic that America, the world’s leading exporter of wheat, is importing wheat gluten from China?

I got an espresso machine for Christmas and I’ve had fun playing with it ever since.

Reading up on the art of espresso making has left me a tad dizzy, though. Espresso lovers make wine snobs look tolerant. The laws of espresso leave little room for forgiveness:

• One must have the proper amount of cream (froth, not the dairy product) atop the coffee.
• One must never drink milky espresso drinks (cappuccino and lattes) after noon. Actually, one should never drink lattes at all, since they’re a crime against the universe.
• One must produce espresso that is full-bodied but not bitter (good luck with that one).
• One must grind the coffee just right, in a grinder with burrs, not blades.
• One must use a pump-powered espresso maker, not, heaven forbid, a steam-driven machine.

I break just about all of these laws, starting with the one that forbids lattes after noon. But then I’m not an espresso purist, just someone who likes strong, flavorful coffee with a lot of sweet frothy milk.

There is a certain comfort to the ritual of making espresso. But what really attracts me to this method of coffee making is the steam. I love that high-pitched cry when the steaming wand meets the cold milk. I stare in fascination when the machine hisses and belches steam, like a classic train locomotive pulling into the station. It’s awesome.

Let the aficionados argue over the art and science of making espresso. To me, it’s just fun.