There is not a single point in time that I can recall where I did not love apples, and many of my developmental anecdotes include them in one way or another. One of my core memories is of the day I told my mom I no longer wanted an “apple” haircut. My family gave this name to my small-Asian-girl-compulsory bob because it made my head look like an apple. I called it that because the products the hairdresser put in my hair smelled like apples, and I loved apples more than anything else in the world. Confession: I actually really hated how round the apple haircut made my head, but it was essential to my character growth. Every day of kindergarten, I had an apple sandwich: peeled apple slices in between two slices of Martin’s potato bread. I also developed numerous cavities from the amount of Martinelli’s I drank. There’s a stereotype that East Asian parents only know how to say “I love you” through cut fruit. Well, in my earlier days, I measured my love for all adults by how many apples they peeled and sliced for me.
On one of the first sweater cold days of this fall, I was gifted a McIntosh apple. You know Pixar’s 2007 rodential classic, Ratatouille? Remember the climax, when Anton Ego takes a bite and remembers his childhood in the French countryside? That. That is how I felt biting into the succulent flesh of this apple. It always takes me longer than it should to remember when my family moved to California. I didn’t like living there initially because there was an apple tree in our yard that could only produce gritty apples. I jumped to the conclusion that no matter how hard I tried, I could never get an apple on the West Coast that would satisfy me. A few years after moving to California, I started boarding school in North Central Massachusetts. I still remember being thirteen, eating apples every day during my free period because I remember thinking how could I not have apples right now. The fruit I ate that fall paralleled my McIntosh experience from this semester. For various reasons, I have spent the past few autumn away from New England, and I didn’t realize the extent of how that affected me. It’s been far too long, and I am so back.
Over the Indigenous People’s Day long weekend, with my first ever roommate, Hat, I did what every nuclear family in New England does: drive around to eat apples and peep leaves. Hat and I lived together our freshman year of high school. At some point in our junior year, we reminisced about how viciously red the leaves had been the past fall, and the conclusion of the conversation was that one day we would go on a road trip, an apple cider donut tour of New England. Little did I know, she isn’t actually that fond of apple cider donuts. This grand road trip that I envisioned had no incentive for her except that we would spend a weekend together––something upsettingly rare these days. Thus, the Central New England Apple Weekend Loop was born. The rest of this article will be a slightly pragmatic, more so anecdotal guide in chronological order of the highlights. We stopped many more times, but these are the places that reminded me of my love for apples, so buckle up.
- Johnny Appleseed Visitors’ Center
Leominster, MA
Just in case you were wondering where the largest apple (sculpture) in New England is, it’s here, at the Johnny Appleseed Visitors’ Center. While this rest stop was not actually our first stop, we referred to it as such. It was also not where we intended to stay––for some context, we had no accommodations lined up. From previous adventures, we found that sleeping in the car was comfortable enough, and it was Massachusetts––we had back-up plans. This rest-stop was actually eerily close to our high school, an aspect of this trip that proved to me history will repeat itself and that this life is one big sick joke. I digress.
What I enjoyed about this site was the insistence of North Central Massachusetts’ relevance as a tourist destination. I have designated this road trip as Central New England because of this. Even though Hat goes to school in Maine, and I’m in Rhode Island, we never made it to either, or even Connecticut. So, to be precise, as the Johnny Appleseed Visitors’ Center has been, this only took place in Central New England. It was striking how little there was happening other than the presence of an apple that can house over 20,000 more apples inside of it and the occasional alpaca pen in front of it. There was all this fuss over the semantics, but in a state so small it shouldn't really matter. After living here for so long, I have decided that New England, especially Massachusetts, is all the same.
2. Scott Farm Orchard, 2nd Best Cider Donuts
Dummerston, VT
While it was nice to enjoy my frozen cider and donut with live music, what stood out the most here was the variety of apples. Most of them were Heirlooms, but there were also some common classics like Gravensteins, which are significant to Hat and me because, on our last road trip, we stayed in a Gravenstein tree treehouse, a story for a different time. They are better for baking, and thus a bit mealy when eaten raw and plain. My favorite was the api etoile, a crunchy, vaguely star shaped apple. They also had russetted apples, which taste normal but their skin looks wicked. The cutest ones were the pine apples, which had a similar taste to the api etoile, just physically much smaller, green, and only mildly crispy.
Compared to other donuts on our roadtrip, these had the perfect level of sweetness, but were far too dense to take the #1 spot. They also did not have a pronounced enough apple flavor.
3. Middlebury Falls
Middlebury, Vermont
My favorite stop overall of the weekend was in Middlebury. Our dear friend Gracie goes to school there, and neither of us had seen her since around graduation. The most comforting feeling, after eating apples, of course, is seeing old friends. The past few years, I have moved around excessively, so I have grown accustomed to not really knowing the people around me. However, drinking cider in the park overlooking Middlebury Falls with Gracie reminded me that there are people in my life who understand me so well and I them. We only spent around forty-five minutes in that park, but I’ll take any time I can get.
4. Applecrest Farm Orchard, The Best Cider Donuts in all of (Central) New England
Hampton Falls, NH
On our last day, the weather was hungover from the storm the night before. Since Friday, we had made six donut-based stops, and Hat was done. She wasn’t complaining, but I knew these would be the last apple cider donuts she would eat for years to come. Applecrest Farm Orchard was a family experience, as were most of these establishments. They had a central store to dole out half peck bags, pre-picked apples, and of course the donuts. Surrounding the store were overpriced activities, like a $9 corn maze and a pumpkin patch to pick-your-own pumpkins that were already severed from their vines. Throughout the trip, we vlogged our reviews, so as was obligatory, we found a spot to settle and film. Historically, over the past three days, donut after donut, Hat would look at the camera and say, “It’s ok.” This time, however, she immediately declared how delicious they were. “No way, let me try.” Oh my. In an apple cider donut, what I look for is potent apple flavor and balance of sweetness and density. This had all of that and a light crisp from the fryer; these were the treats we drove through Central New England for.
I love apples for similar reasons to why I love Hat. Apples are so heavily ingrained in my East Coast cultural vernacular, so much so that I rarely have them anywhere else in the world. Despite my passion for apples, they are not enough to keep me here for the rest of my life. What I have learned from Hat is that love isn’t tethering. She constantly weaves in and out of my life, but that doesn’t make her any less important. Although the novelty of autumn hasn’t worn off, even as I've been over-romanticizing it, I could not limit myself forever for the sake of a single fruit. Initially, I was grasping onto the comfort of nostalgia that apples bring, but what I realized with Hat is nostalgia implies a memory stopped in time. What I appreciate about Hat is even though we’ve known each other for quite some time, we don’t spend our time reminiscing about the past. We are so different from the day we first met, and because of that, there is so much more for us to do out there than what we’ve already done. In the parking lot of the Canton Junction commuter rail station, Hat and I sat in silence listening to ‘Someone to Call My Lover’ by Janet Jackson, our favorite song of the weekend. I honestly do not know when I’ll see Hat again in person, but I do know that it will be like eating the first apple of the season in New England, which should not be confused with eating over a dozen apple cider donuts on a roadtrip in October.
