I was so inspired by the range of heirloom apples, that I recently hosted an apple tasting party, where I tried 12 different old-fashioned varieties. Each apple was sliced and passed around, while I shared some of the history about the fruit.

The guests used score cards to judge which apple was their favorite like they can express why. It's a bit like tasting different varieties of wine. And the cleanse of palette between the various apples we nibbled on fresh baked bread and butter, cheese, walnuts, grapes and all kind of goodies. It was truly a lot of fun.

Each of these varieties of apples have their own individual signature, flavor. It is so good. Talking with you about growing with my grandparents I remember them, storing canned goods as well as potatoes and things like that in root cellars. And when the apple harvest came along, they took certain apples and wrapped them in newspaper like this, and stored them in the cool dark cellar and they would last up to three months.

Now the reason for wrapping them is if there were any bruise spots or places on the apples that they wouldn't touch one another, which will cut down on any chance that any spoiled spots might get into the other apples.