Now, I know you can probably get your hands on a few varieties of apples at the grocery store year round, but before you go and settle, get yourself out to the Farmers Market ( I know that there are at least a few still running outdoors thru the end of October) and treat yourself to some Illinois, Michigan, and Indiana apples they way they were meant to be enjoyed. Fresh from the farm, and free of wax and shellac coatings and nasty irradiants and preservatives (yeah, this explains why that store-bought apple you cut into and forgot on the counter, still hasn't turned brown after a couple of hours) and full of flavor. Yes, flavor. Most commercially grown apples have had the flavor bred right out of them, producing a good-looking, but bland and (as termed by the commercial growers, not me) 'neutral' flavored piece of fruit.

Get to the market and discover what apples really taste like. And those flavors are as diverse as the names. Oh, and looks ain't everything either. Take the 'Twenty Ouncer' for instance -- a huge and rather russeted and bumpy (like, no other way to say it, bad acne) surface. Bite into it and you will never judge an apple by the surface again. Besides the Orange Cox Pippin and the Honey Crisp, I think the Twenty Ouncer is one of my favorites this season. But don't go on my tastebuds alone, plenty of the Farmers Market vendors are more than happy to give you samples of varieties you are unfamiliar with. And they are more than happy to explain the nuances of each variety. Why Nichols Farm alone grows about 167 varieties of apples.

Look for fragrant, firm and tight-skinned apples. Bruising, bad. Russeting (patches and stripes of different colors), good. Lots of fiber, lots of flavanoids, lots of antioxidants, lots of tannins, and low in calories, no wonder we should be eating them 'once a day.' Enjoy as is, sliced into salad, or slipped into a grilled cheese sandwich, Cook down into sauce (just cored, peeled and sliced apples, a squeeze of lemon, a little water, cinnamon, if you like, and that's it, just some time on the stove), bake into a pie or crisp, add to soup, roast or grill to accompany pork or chicken, or as below, on a perfect salad for this time of year.

2 medium apples

olive oil

salt & cracked black pepper

1/2 teaspoon dried rosemary (optional)

mixed baby greens

Stilton or favorite blue cheese

favorite vinaigrette (a dijon works nicely)

honey for drizzling

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Cut apples in half and core. Place apples flesh-side up in a baking dish. Drizzle olive oil and sprinkle salt, pepper and rosemary on the apples.

Roast apples for 20 minutes. Remove from oven.

Toss salad greens with vinaigrette and divide among 4 salad plates. Place one apple half on each plate of greens. Then top each with a slice of stilton and a drizzle of honey. Kick it up a bit more with a sprinkling of toasted walnuts or pecans.