"A" is for Apple, bees are for honey

Hey all!

It's the last day taping in Rochester, NY for an episode of How'd That Get On My Plate? based on apples. I haven't eaten one whole apple, but add all the bites up from each orchard or branch and I think it totals about 3 apples, had a Gala right off the branch! Then we had a Mc D's breakfast this morning in I think the nicest cleanest Mc D's ever -- I decided to get the walnuts and apples ... so I'm all appled up, even bloggin on a computer with an apple on it :-).

Ok, some flicks ...
These apples are on the way into the Mott's facility to become applesauce. Word ... remember "Who's got the Mott's????", how neat to get the inside look at such an iconic brand. Check supastar camera dude Tony and auditory aficionado John making sure it all gets caught so you can be inside the walls of the iconic brand too.


Here's another shot, these are a mix of 4 apples, Idareds, Goldens, Crispins and my teeny memory can't pull up the last one, argh ...


We went inside and took in the scene ... here's a neat lil pic I took at the top of the scaffolding in the apple wash room.



All those apples are being rinsed off to remove leaves and debris from the orchard. This is a neat little view of the packing machine ... the cups drop in the holder, they are filled by a piston filler and a split second later a lid gets placed on top then double heat sealed, just to be safe.


That's strawberry applesauce, wanna hear something crazy, but pretty cool? They were initially supposed to make 3 different types of applesauce today, none of them strawberry, but when they mentioned they produced it there, we were like "YEAH!!!". I think mostly because we just love color and things that haven't been shown yet, so they took our enthusiasm and produced the strawberry applesauce that was on slate for tomorrow's schedule. So, if there's a 1-day shortage at your local grocer for plain applesauce ... blame us :-) ... j/k they make enough to never run out ... as long as there are orchards, there's Mott's!

Then, when we were also at Fowler Farms, an apple orchard that produces a kajillion (so, official right?) apples a year ... I learned that sometimes apple trees aren't grown, they are built. Really neat and they do so much to be Green, which is great these days, but they've been that way for a while. During the middle of taping yesterday I got the word from the producer that I had about a 20 minute break ... well, right around the same time our escorts were talking about how the lake was just 1 mile straight through the orchard ... I was like, ok, I'm gonna walk over there and take a look ... be right back. lol ... I was really ready to walk, a mile isn't much for this New Yorker and former runner, but then Lee, the guy you'll see me chatting with on the orchard part of the apple episode (if you catch it and I hope you do ;-P ) said "hey let's all hop in the car and go!" ... So, everyone that was on break hopped in and boy was it a neat little 20 minute treat!! We drove only a few minutes and then the road just ended ... right at the edge of the lake. Here's me skippin' rocks into Lake Ontario ... check my form ...

Oh, lemme stop lyin' ... I was tryyyyinggg to, but couldn't. Does the ability to skip rocks leave with age?? As a kid, I remember doing it very well in a lake near San Antonio, TX. All of a sudden a chick can't skip for anything! I had fun trying though ... what a view ... click the image below and see the teeeeny sailboat in the distance.


And here's another shot, it was pretty so I decided to do what most people do when they see something nice, take a pic in front of it, and cover about 90 percent of what you thought was nice! Teeheehee .. so the next one is me and Ms. Saucy ... that's her alias :-) ... she did my make up for the opening sequence of Cooking for Real and I met her through a former co-worker a couple of years ago, this is our first road trip and it's so much fun having someone from home around.

and now us hoping our smiles make up for covering the pretty landscape :-)


Speaking of home, we are headed to North Carolina in the morning and in addition to learning more about jalapenos (I have a PhD in heat, so won't be much learnin', mostly eating I hope, but there is always something to learn and I truly believe that in life) I'm expecting to see some relatives too, have a great rest of the week and weekend. I'll check in if anything neat pops up. Take care!