Apple trees and honey bees

This is our new Golden Delicious apple tree, purchased at minimum cost from Asda.

Blossoms are already emerging and it's currently getting a reasonable amount of sunshine. I've found a slot on the lawn for it and dug it in well. We'll get a picket fence for it - but there will be no more football on the lawn.

Now I have to find a space for a second apple tree, which will be a Downton Pippin or some equally rare yellow apple. Apparently they cross-pollinate. The neighbour has a thriving apple tree so I hope they will help each other along. Must also ensure no one goes round swotting honey bees.

The aim is to cultivate the other, rare kinds of yellow apple. You need Golden Delicious to pollinate them, it seems - so we are starting here. And this way we will find if an apple tree can grow in our garden.

RAS

Apple juice

#BAD11 #worldfoodday I'm not sure about the Golden Nobles. They are yellow but I'm not sure they are salicylate free. In fact there's a distinct soreness of my throat and running of my nose after eating foods made from them.

I'm ignoring it. It's a cooking apple. It's yellow and  I should be able to eat it and we've got a stock of them. We've eaten apple crumble and made an apple cake. I added some water to some left over stewed apple and drank it as a juice. Apple juice! I haven't drunk that for some time. It left a funny taste in my mouth but did not choke me - so maybe they are only low salicylate. The two varieties of yellow pippin don't seem to have caused any harm. They are delicious but running out fast.

A new blender seems to have appeared in the house so we're thinking of trying some banana smoothies using Smartprice bananas. However I'm not sure it's a good use of expensive fruit. It took one large Golden Noble to make a glass of apple juice and just a couple of minutes to drink it.

Today bloggers are writing about food for World Food Day and also for Blog Action Day, which focuses on the world's starving. If I seem to moan that there's lots of food I can't eat, don't take it seriously. For millions around the world there's lots of food they can't eat, because they cannot get it. And that includes Smartprice bananas and apples and bread.

RAS

Apples!

The Wormsley Pippin - raised at Downton Castle

We were in Herefordshire the home of the English apple yesterday. And by all accounts it has been a bumper season for the English apple.

We came across an apple exhibition - and not only an exhibition but a sale of rare apples.

Now the diet sheets, as I recall, specify yellow apples only and then in brackets (Golden Delicious). I've never known whether this means only the Golden Delicious has ever been tested or whether they know something about apples in general. It certainly fits with the general principle the redder the fruit, the more dangerous.

But here, at this exhibition, was a host of other yellow apples. So we bought bags of them - one bag of a large yellow cooking apple called Golden Noble. Another bag full of the Wormsley Pippin. I have eaten a Wormsley Pippin tonight and it is delicious - soft and sweet but not round enough for the supermarkets. No obvious ill-effects - maybe my throat feels a little sore. But the diet sheets say "yellow apples" - so we will be eating yellow apples all winter.

There was also a small apple called the Downton Pippin. I got some of these and tried one. Very hard and aromatic and probably not good for the digestion - but I will have to eat them now. The Dowton, like the Wormsley, is raised at a place called Downton Castle, yes, really Downton Castle (If you don't know Downton Abbey is a hit costume drama on British television).

And given the glut of apples this winter, I bitterly resent paying supermarket prices. They are on the ground everywhere you go. We are in fact planning to invest in some Golden Delicious trees. Maybe we could get some Wormsley Pippin trees? Wouldn't that be great!

* If you are in Herefordshire, you have to head for the National Trust's Berrington Hall to find the exhibition.

* I have now googled the Wormsley Pippin and sure enough it is possible to buy the trees. There is a complication - they need a partner to pollinate. The good news is that the Golden Delicious tree will do the job. I can see an orchard coming on.

RAS

Cheap bananas

A few weeks ago I bought a big bag of market-price bananas from Tesco's. If you're lucky with these bananas they are edible. If you're unlucky they go off fast or fail to ripen properly. For a few pence, it's hit and miss.

These were large bananas and apparently just about ripe and at first quite edible. We put them in the fridge, where the skin turned brown but the inside stayed white.

Usable bananas are usually quite expensive and that's put me off experimenting with them. This was different. As time went by the flavour changed - they began to taste like the banana you get in tinned fruit salad, so far as I can recall tinned fruit salad. Not especially pleasant to eat raw.

I've tried cooking with bananas before. This time I fried up a mix of banana, golden delicious and tuna, with a little cabbage - then adding soy sauce for more flavour. I ate it with spaghetti. It was delicious, and, surprisingly, it tasted like curry. So maybe it would be even better with rice. I wonder how I can make it even more like curry. There is still the outstanding mystery of why tandoori appears on the diet list.

I used one for a banana split meal - with ice cream and cream. You could add chocolate sauce as well, I suppose.

After nearly two weeks, we used the last few bananas to make banana cake. Delicious and it lasted for a long time.

Now I wonder about fruit salad. I could make it with banana, golden delicious apple and green grapes. But I wonder where the juice would come from. Commercial salads often use a syrup - but the better quality ones use a fruit juice. Does anyone know how you could make a juice? I am thinking of a fruit salad with ice cream and cream. I am thinking and salivating.

RAS

No bananas?

This Danish study alarmed me as it says what I've always feared someone would say - that bananas aren't that great for you. Nor grapes.

The authors claim it pretty well settles the question of which diet to use to lose weight - low-carb, low fat and high protein. That seems to have sense, but what about fish - which surely is quite heavy in fish fat? I rely on bananas for my five-a-day, I find Golden Delicious apples increasingly unpalatable and probably rather more expensive than cheap bananas.

The conclusions of the Danish study are interesting but I'm not sure it settles the question of diet. For a start it involved barely a thousand families. I am certainly still stepping up my consumption of fish. I've just discovered the joy of grilled sardines. The grill helps to heat the house on a cold day and they make a reasonable quick snack for lunch or a light dinner.

And the good news is that my left arm has all but healed - no doubt thanks to grilled sardines. It has taken weeks but now it is no more than a little stiff - and it is getting better not worse in spite of Britain's icy weather. It's been a slow process and that's my excuse for only posting once before in November.

RAS