Getting to the core of the Big Apple

New York is the Big Apple.And one of its biggest apple growers tells me:“I’m Joel Crist.

Crist.Not Christ.

Back to 1883, we’re fifth-generation growers.I eat them with peanut butter and raisins.“Our Hudson Valley company has over 200 people working.

We produce 75 million apples here.Florida to Maine, we ship three tractor-trailer loads a day.

Five generations ago, my great-great-grandfather would take his horse and buggy into town.Early generations filled barrels on barges, down the Hudson River into New York City.”“There’s also Mother Nature’s curve balls.

This spring’s freeze killed fruit.With little rain, a little smaller.

We supply millions of apples every year, and there’s drought, fire.All taste different.

I learned it at Cornell.”Oy! Cornell has its own problems.“Yes, but our rich nutrient soil makes great applesauce, apple pie, apple cider.Apples cross-pollinate so every seed creates a new variety.

A Snap Dragon’s crispier.Rain makes them bigger.

Teams of world scientists pick them in fall.They taste different.

Some juicier.“We do varieties.Scientists and college consumers work on this.

There’s delicious apples.McIntosh apples.

Cornell scientists constantly crossbreed to create new varieties.Remember, an apple a day keeps the doctor away.

Get one in July, it’s just as good as the one you get tomorrow.Keep them in our fridge up to 12 months.”Something needs to be done about the mishmash on East 86th Street.

Happier Grocery is now coming there, and Our Town’s Arlene Kayatt says the last thing that area needs is another grocery store.86th’s corridor is beginning to resemble the Congo after a cranky animal fight.Messy.

Tumultuous.Not needed is another groceteria.

Now supermarket Happier Grocery OK’d taking over the 21,000 square feet that housed City Cinemas.Everyone loved that movie house.

This street does not need another grocery store.East 86th remains a store mishmash — some open, some languishing.�...