Short Trips: The apple pickings are ripe at crop of stalls

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Thursday, September 26, 2002

Short Trips: The apple pickings are ripe at crop of stalls

By JEFF LARSEN
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER PHOTOGRAPHER

A little apple quiz: What's a cross between a Gravenstein and a Golden Delicious? If you guessed a Gravedel, you're wrong. Surprisingly, it's called a Hawaii apple.

PHOTO GALLERY

See more photos from Jeff's visit to the Wenatchee Valley

Octavio Torres, who manages the Feil Orchards Fruit Stand in East Wenatchee, said the apple is supposed to have just a hint of pineapple taste. I tried one and it tasted great -- very crunchy and plenty juicy, but sorry, there wasn't any pineapple flavor I could detect, even with my discriminating pallet.

It's those kind of vignettes that make fruit-stand hopping in the Wenatchee Valley such a joy, especially this time of year. Apple harvest is under way and the stands are brimming with new-crop apples and the tail end of some peach and plum varieties. And if you live on the west side of the Cascades, real tree-ripened fruit, the kind most vendors sell in the Wenatchee Valley, is hard to come by, even at some of the best farmers markets.


		Jeff Larsen / P-I
	Lovella Rushing, left, from Republic, chats with Octavio Torres, manager of Feil Orchards Fruit Stand in East Wenatchee.

I once knew a fellow who called himself a "fruitarian" -- one who eats only fruit. I couldn't find fruitarian in the dictionary, but after two days in the Wenatchee Valley, I learned that eating only fruit might not be a bad diet. I ate enough of it while I was there to give it a pretty good test.

According to some of the growers, if all goes well with the weather, apple harvest usually starts around Sept. 10 and runs for about six weeks. The apple varieties generally are picked in the order of maturation. For instance, during mid- to late September they pick Golden Delicious, then what few Red Delicious are still being grown, then Galas, and so on. The harvest is usually wrapped up by the end of October.

Already well known for its annual Apple Blossom Festival, Wenatchee this weekend hosts the annual Apple Harvest Festival. One of the weekend's premier events is the apple-bin rally Saturday morning, when teams from all over the valley determine who is fastest at pushing a huge wooden apple bin through a 100-yard obstacle course. They guarantee lots of splinters and spills.

With the harvest in full swing, you have between now and the end of October to reap the rewards that a good fruit-stand hop can deliver. All the stands I visited as well as the granddaddy of all fruit stands, the Wenatchee Valley Farmers Market, have one thing in common -- the vendors love to talk fruit . . . if the vendor is there. (I couldn't visit all the stands in the valley, so if I missed one of your favorites, e-mail me and I will put it on my list for a future visit).

It looks like the honor system is alive and well at the Orchard Run Fruit Stand on the Blewett Pass Highway (U.S. Route 97), about a mile from the intersection with U.S. Route 2. Bonnie Brownell and Betty Wyss, both from Vashon Island, found a good pear selection at the makeshift-looking stand nestled among the trees in the roadside pear orchard. The two poked and prodded boxed samples of various varieties, gathered up a couple of bags full, and paid cash by stuffing dollar bills into a slot at the front of the wooden stand.

It's a primitive way of doing business, but from my experience, the fruit is good, and it's probably the lowest overhead stand in the Wenatchee Valley.


		Jeff Larsen / P-I
	Plums are a popular item at Feil Orchards Fruit Stand on Route 97.

After many years in the apple business, Edsel Reeves calls himself a soft-fruit guy now. Owner of the tidy B&B Fruit Stand in East Wenatchee for the past 40 years, Reeves bailed on apples seven years ago when the industry started to tank. Now he raises and sells14 varieties of soft (stone) fruit, such as peaches, apricots and nectarines, plus several varieties of cherries.

You could eat off the floor of his roadside stand, and all his fruit stands at attention in the displays. He has the best signage in the valley, with giant apple-shaped signs at either end of the entrances off Route 97, just a couple of miles from the intersection with U.S. Route 2 near the Columbia River. What apples he offers, Reeves buys from local growers now, so his prices are generally a little higher than some of his competitors, but all his fruit is good quality.

With her 2-year-old boy, Cheyenne, on her hip, Cindy Ausmus couldn't decide which apple variety she wanted to buy at the Feil Orchards Fruit Stand for her senior day-care clients in Republic. "My ladies are fruit addicts. Better than whiskey, I guess," she said.

The colorful stand, just a peach-pit throw away from the B&B stand on the same side of Route 97 in East Wenatchee, is so close to the road that passing trucks can suck the hat right off your head if you're not careful.

Manager Torres explained that the stand has been in the same spot since 1908, well before the road was there, so the state can't force the family-owned business to move farther from the busy highway. Besides cultivating more than 85 varieties of apples over the years, Feil also grows a number of peach, plum, apricot and nectarine varieties. The season for Feil be- gins with the harvest of several cherry varieties earlier in the summer.

To Joan Estes, owning a fruit stand is a labor of love -- a lot of hard work, she admits, but it feeds her soul. She and her daughter, Cindy, run the Estes Fruit Stand, which sits adjacent to their 40-acre orchard on the east side of Route 97, about halfway between Wenatchee and Chelan on the east side of the Columbia River.

Her one pet peeve is customers who leave their diesel-powered pickups running in front of the stand while they shop. It got so bad, she said, that the diesel fumes were killing her hanging-basket flowers and she couldn't carry on a conversation with a customer because of the noise. So up went the sign urging pickup owners to turn off their engines.


		Jeff Larsen / P-I
	Over the years foliage has blocked more and more of the signs marking fruit stands along Highway 97.

Estes said she has a lot of customers from "the coast" who have standing fruit orders. She just calls the customer when the fruit is ready to be picked. Besides cherries early in the summer, the stand features three apple varieties, four or five peach varieties, apricots when in season and nectarines.

Several miles south of Chelan, on the west side of Route 97 not too far from Beebe Bridge Park, manager Jennifer Robelia makes a mean fresh peach milkshake (huge, for $3) at the Lone Pine Fruit and Espresso Stand. A little more trendy and less conventional, the all-indoor stand owned by Wenatchee High School art teacher Sue Walker and her husband, Jim, has an eclectic mix of gift items as well as a lunch and espresso bar.

One of their most popular lunch items is a cup of soup and half a turkey, ham or veggie sandwich, made to order for $4. They also sell homemade pies, whole or by the slice. Like most of the other vendors, they grow the majority of the fruit they sell. The stand is open seven days a week from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., year-round and JenniferRobelia said they even deliver homemade pies on Thanksgiving.

The Homestead fruit stand on the west side of the river on Route 97A, just south of Entiat, owned by Richard and Steve Shank, grows and sells one of the best Jonagold apples I saw in the region. They have boxes and boxes of the lovely huge apples, which are a cross between a Jonathan and a Golden Delicious.

Deborah Shank also makes and sells her own jams and jellies. Regular customers even bring the jars back so she can reuse them. New this season for Homestead is the Honey Crisp apple variety, a cross between a Jonagold and a Gala.

Over the grinding noise of a diesel pickup parked out front, John Lundberg, owner of Trader John's Lake Entiat fruit stand, tossed a Zee Sweet peach up in the air and pronounced that he "just picked these suckers today."

You can't miss the fruit stand, with its smiling wooden fruit character cutouts dancing across the front of the store in the little town of Entiat on the shores of Lake Entiat, part of the Columbia River.

Lundberg said his wife, Sharon, mostly runs the stand while he tends to the orchards nearby on the western slopes of the valley, a location they claim makes their fruit sweeter than in other parts of the Wenatchee Valley.

At the Wenatchee Valley Farmers Market early on a crisp Saturday morning, East Wenatchee farmer Al Conti stuck his dish full of Gala apple slices far enough into the crowd so it was pretty tough for any of the hundreds of potential customers to get by his stand without tasting a slice. For more than 20 years, Conti has stuck that dish out for customers at Waterfront Park to help sell not only his apples but the amazing variety of fruits and vegetables he says he grows and harvests all by himself -- no middle man, as he put it.

To me, Conti summed up the spirit of the Wenatchee Valley fruit vendors. All seemed to a have a tough independent spirit and entrepreneurship that make their fruit stands more than just places to buy fruit. They're terribly proud of what they grow and want you to enjoy eating the fruit as much as they enjoy growing it.

If you go

Estes Fruit Stand -- U.S. Route 97, 4 miles north of Lincoln Rock State Park; 509-884-2034. Open daily 8 a.m.-7:30 p.m., closes for the winter Nov. 1.

Lone Pine Fruit and Espresso Stand -- 23041 U.S. Route 97, Orondo; 509-682-1514; open daily 7 a.m.-7 p.m., year-round.

Trader John's Lake Entiat Fruit Stand -- P.O. Box 451, Route 97A, Entiat; 509-784-1430; open 9 a.m.-7 p.m., daily; closes Oct. 25 for the winter.

B&B Fruit Stand -- 3 miles north of U.S. Route 2 intersection; 509-884-2522; open daily 8:30 a.m. - 6 p.m.; closes for the winter Nov. 1.

Homestead Fruit Stand -- At Entiat on Route 97A; 509-665-8243; open 9 a.m.-6 p.m. daily.

Wenatchee Valley Farmers Market -- Waterfront Park, downtown Wenatchee at the foot of Fifth Avenue; open Saturday 8 a.m.-1 p.m., Sunday 9 a.m.- 1 p.m. and Wednesday, 8 a.m - 1 p.m.

Wenatchee Valley Convention & Visitors bureau -- Excellent source for accommodations and restaurants; 800-572-7753; www.wenatcheevalley.org.

P-I photographer Jeff Larsen can be reached at 206-448-8150. For personal e-mail contact: jefflarsen@seattlepi.com. For general releases: shorttrips@seattlepi.com.

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