Saturday afternoon, the BF and I drove down to Chanhassen for a stroll around the Arboretum and a peek at the U of M AppleHouse. (According to MapQuest, it was only a 20 minute jaunt from our house in St. Louis Park… but we missed an exit and ended up at Valley Fair… Ooops.)

The first time I visited at the Arbortum, I was on a photo assignment for the Minnesota Daily and accidentally stumbled upon Prince, his then girlfriend Mayte and 12 of their closest friends. His security guard mistook my chunky wide angle zoom as a telephoto lens, and something told me to split the scene before I got the full paparazzi treatment. I was so rattled by the encounter (Who knew His Purpleness — and possibly my life — could be so short?), that I spent the rest of my visit in a total daze, oblivious to my beautiful surroundings.

Though many plants were no longer in bloom, the Arboretum was full of fall color — and blushing brides. Bright blue sky with no humidity or bugs, it was a perfect September afternoon to stand around in a big taffeta dress or a stinky rented tux. There were four wedding parties working the grounds and we accidentally wandered into two photo shoots. I wanted to make it 4 for 4, but Brian was anxious to get to the AppleHouse.

“I’ve had enough native grasses and bridesmaids, I want some apple crisp.”

We bought a family membership on our way out to the car, then drove another mile west to the home of the Honeycrisp.

I had envisioned the AppleHouse to as a little cottage run by clumsy, but endearing elves. However, in reality, the AppleHouse is a glorified machine shed filled with shelves of apples, tables of apple related brick-a-brack and a line of crabby apple fans. There were at least six different varieties, but many shoppers just made a b-line to the coveted Zestar and Honeycrisp apples stacked near the cash register.

Brian and I took our time reading the descriptions and laughing at the names, many of which were research numbers.

“Hey honey, wanna try some delicious MN 1850’s?”

“No, I’m into the 447’s.”

Eventually, we decided on a bag of Ginger Golds, a bag of Le Crescents (a variety from France which tasted like pears) and a bag of the mysterious MN 1850’s.

To be honest, I wouldn’t drive all the way to Chanhassen exclusively for the AppleHouse, but the Le Crescents certainly made one tasty apple crisp.

This entry was posted on Monday, September 17th, 2007 at 11:15 am and is filed under Apples, Plums + Tree fruits. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.