He's no expert baker, but Ray Hollmeyer sure has strong opinions on which apples make the best pie.

“Northern Spy,” he says, without hesitation. “I tell people to make a pie with Northern Spies, and if they don't like it to bring it back to me. I'll finish it.”

Ray Hollmeyer says the hot, dry summer hurt his apple crop. (Michael E. Keating photos) | ZOOM |

The rare heirloom apple is one of more than 30 varieties grown by Mr. Hollmeyer and his son, Ron, in their orchards in Green Township. With help from his wife, Jeanne, and Ron's wife, Bev, they sell apples, cider, honey and a few late-season vegetables from their market.

Made of ancient timbers and mortared fieldstone, the market — a former wagon house — is so small you might miss it coming down the hill on winding Fiddlers Green Road. Only the splash of rust-orange pumpkins squatting on the grass might catch your eye.

“Northern Spies aren't the best looking apple,” Mr. Hollmeyer says. “They're mostly green, sometimes with a red cheek. But they're large and firm, with yellow meat. I don't know. They're just the best.”

He may not bake many pies, but Mr. Hollmeyer knows his apples. At 81, he's been growing and picking them all his life. Mr. Hollmeyer has turned over most of the farm operations to his son, but he's still very involved in the business. He presses cider while swatting yellow jackets many days, looks after the bee hives and scoots around his orchards in an old golf cart. And he's always ready with apple advice.

“I haven't gone anywhere,” he says, sitting at a table in his cozy kitchen that smells sweetly of furnace heat and breakfast . “I'm still here.”

Ray Hollmeyer (left) with his wife, Jeanne, daughter-in-law Bev and son Ron. | ZOOM |

His son already is picking apples on this cold, flannel-gray October morning. But every time the phone rings at the market, with someone asking if they have cider or some particular kind of apple, it rings in Mr. Hollmeyer's kitchen. This way, he can pick up the phone in case no one else does.

From his house, Mr. Hollmeyer can see the market below and the orchards across the road and out back. He was born in this house, in what is now the dining room off the kitchen. It's the same house his father bought with the farm in 1916, the oldest part of which was built in 1805 by the Markland family. The settlers are buried under a Red Delicious apple tree on a hill across Fiddlers Green. A small, white stone obelisk bearing weather-worn carvings marks their graves.

We're not sure how the Marklands died, but we do know the Hollmeyers are prone to long, healthy lives .

“My grandmother used to say hard work never killed anyone,” Mr. Hollmeyer says with a grin.

Well, Mr. Hollmeyer did have an uncle who died after falling from a ladder while picking apples. But even he was in his 80s. His father, William, piddled around at the farm until his death at age 82, and his mother, Ella, lived to 94. And nearly to the end, she peeled potatoes in the kitchen at her nursing home to keep busy.

“Maybe there is something to eating apples every day,” says Mr. Hollmeyer, whose face looks as freshly pink and blemish-free as the best fruit from the tree.

Fresh from the farm

His mother was jolly and happy-go-lucky, a wonderful cook who had fresh apple pies and peach cakes waiting for him to eat after school many days.

“My father was a pessimist,” he says. “If it was going to be cold, it was going to freeze.”

But their two personalities balanced the marriage and the business. After putting $500 down on the 37 acres in 1916, William Hollmeyer had paid the $5,000 mortgage on the farm within three years. Mr. Hollmeyer remembers getting up in the darkness of cold spring mornings with his father to light damp bales of hay in the orchard. The heavy smoke blanketed the trees and kept the tender apple blossoms from freezing.

APPLE PRIMER

Northern Spy: This apple originated as a seedling planted in 1800 near East Bloomfield, N.Y. Some believe it was so named because the Underground Railroad, a secret system that brought slaves North to freedom, operated in this part of New York. Northern Spy apples are sweet, crisp and juicy, good for eating and baking. And even though the variety is somewhat rare, many, including the Hollmeyers, consider it among the best-tasting apples. Ida Red: Developed as a cross between Jonathan and Wagener apples in 1942, this variety is firm, crisp and juicy. If you can't find a Northern Spy, the Hollmeyers suggest using Ida Red apples to make pies. Arkansas Black: One of the last varieties to ripen, this small, dark red apple is tart and delicious fresh or cooked — especially in apple sauce. Also a good keeper. Grimes Golden: This apple originated in West Virginia in 1832. It ripens to a bright yellow-green with a distinctive spicy flavor. Melrose: Developed in 1944 in Wooster, this is Ohio's State Apple. Large, with firm, juicy, slightly tart flesh. Some believe Melrose apples taste better after Christmas.

When Mr. Hollmeyer finished high school in 1938, his father offered to make him a partner in the business if he'd work with him another two years. He was the youngest of four siblings, but the only one interested in staying on at the farm.

“I don't know why,” he says. “Just did.”

In 1958, Mr. Hollmeyer bought the farm from his father, who moved just across the road with his wife to retire.

“He still came down pretty much every day after that,” Mr. Hollmeyer says. “We used to catch him climbing tall ladders to pick apples, even though I told him not to.”

Bearing fruit

Before walking outside, he puts on a second warm flannel shirt and tugs a baseball cap over his wisp of silver hair. A little bent with age, Mr. Hollmeyer is still a big man, with hands nearly the size of a half-peck basket.

He climbs into his golf cart, the seats patched with Duct tape, and speeds off for a bumpy, brisk tour of the orchard.

“The apples just don't look the way they should,” he says, pointing to a gnarly tree loaded with fruit.

The summer's drought hurt the apples, he says, but the wet spring created more problems. The frequent early rains prevented the Hollmeyers from spraying the trees to protect the apples from insects and disease. They enjoyed a bumper crop of peaches this summer, but their apples are smaller and less plentiful this fall.

Still, there are apples to pick.

“That's the thing,” he says. “No matter what happens, we always have some apples.”

Mr. Hollmeyer has watched apple farming change since he took the business over from his father. New pesticides and fungicides help them keep the apples virtually bug and disease-free — if they can apply it at the right time. The trees are bred on rootstock to make them grow shorter, making it easier to pick the fruit.

One of the most interesting things he's noticed over the years is the change from wholesale to retail business. Until the late 1960s, Mr. Hollmeyer used to sell most of his apples wholesale to small groceries in Mack, Bridgetown and other nearby towns. He'd load a truck and make his rounds all day every Friday.

But that began to change 30 or more years ago, after grocery stores began buying apples from large growers in Washington and other western states.

More recently, though, customers have started coming to the Hollmeyers — and other small farmers' markets — looking for fruit with flavor they can't find at the supermarket.

“Years ago, somebody decided people wanted big, red apples,” Mr. Hollmeyer says. “In Washington state, they water Red Delicious trees to make the apples turn big and red and then harvest them before they're mature. But they don't have any flavor.”

This is why many people haven't discovered the sweet, juicy flavors of Northern Spy and other heirloom apples.

“Those people don't know what they're missing,” Mr. Hollmeyer says.

Word gets around, though, and enough people have learned to slow down when coming over the hill on Fiddlers Green. Even some of the folks moving into the expensive homes being built in the surrounding hills are coming to Hollmeyer's market.

“We make a good living at this,” Mr. Hollmeyer says. “That's why we're still here.

Ripe for picking

He dismounts from the golf cart to walk into the chilly market, where the sweet fragrance is intense, like you stuck your head into a bushel basket of the freshest apples. There, Mr. Hollmeyer's fair-haired daughter-in-law, Bev, waits on a few customers. She met her husband more than six years ago, after signing on to pick apples part-time.

“After a couple years of picking, I guess he figured I worked out,” she says.

Ms. Hollmeyer works at the market between driving a school bus in the morning and afternoon. She and Ron live across the road in the house built by Ray Hollmeyer's father.

“This is all mine, here,” Mr. Hollmeyer says, pointing to egg cartons on a shelf.

Eggs? Where were the chickens?

Look more closely, and you'll see the cartons are filled with golf balls, not eggs. He and his son pick up the wayward balls, launched from nearby Neumann Golf Course, which borders their back orchard.

“We get $5 a dozen for them,” he says, smiling proudly.

A woman asks Ms. Hollmeyer for the apple she bought last week, but she can't remember its name.

“You can eat it and you can bake with it,” the customer explains cryptically. “But it doesn't get mushy. And it has a little blush on the side.”

Ms. Hollmeyer ponders this for a few seconds.

“Was it Ida Red?” she asks.

“How about Northern Spy?” Mr. Hollmeyer says, jumping in.

Even though his son, who is in the orchard picking, has declared the Northern Spy crop short this year, Mr. Hollmeyer is still pushing them.

In fact, the Northern Spies have sold so well, their space on the wooden shelf is bare.

Ms. Hollmeyer rushes off to the warehouse next door to sort freshly picked apples for the customer.

“Northern Spies are the best apples,” Mr. Hollmeyer says while the woman waits. “Nothing like them.”

Apple pie recipes

No-Crust Apple Pie

Bev Hollmeyer has been making this simple pie for years, and shares the recipe with customers at the family's market. The no-crust pie resembles a French clafouti.

5 to 6 tart apples, cored and peeled

1 tablespoon plus 1 cup sugar

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 cup butter or margarine

1 cup flour

1 egg

1/2 cup chopped nuts

Slice apples and arrange in bottom of 9-inch pie pan or dish. Sprinkle with 1 tablespoon sugar and 1 teaspoon cinnamon.

In sauce pan over low heat, melt butter. Stir in flour, 1 cup sugar, egg and nuts.

When mixed well, pour over apples in pan and spread evenly.

Bake in preheated 350-degree oven for 45 minutes, until lightly browned on top.

Apple Pie

This recipe and its variations are from The Best Recipe (Boston Common; $29.95).

The book's editors call for two varieties of apples because they say the Granny Smith apples add tartness and texture and the McIntosh add sweet flavor.

(Ray Hollmeyer would probably disagree with this selection.)

Enough dough for a 9-inch double pie crust, divided, and refrigerated

2 pounds Granny Smith apples, about 4

2 pounds McIntosh apples, about 4

3/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon sugar

1 1/2 tablespoons lemon juice

1 teaspoon lemon zest

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

1/8 teaspoon ground allspice

1 egg white, beaten lightly

Remove half of dough from refrigerator and let stand at room temperature until malleable. Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Roll one dough disk on a lightly floured surface into a 12-inch circle. Fold dough into quarters, then place dough point in center of 9-inch Pyrex regular or deep dish pie pan. Unfold dough.

Gently press dough into sides of pan, leaving portion that overhangs lip of pie plate in place. Refrigerate while preparing fruit.

Peel, core and cut apples into 1/2- to 3/4- inch slices and toss with 3/4 cup sugar, lemon juice, zest, salt and spices. Turn fruit mixture, including juices, into chilled pie shell and mound slightly in center. Roll out second portion of dough and place over filling. Trim top and bottom edges to 1/2-inch beyond pan lip. Tuck this rim of dough underneath itself so that folded edge is flush with pan lip. Flute edging or press with fork to seal. Cut four slits on dough top. If dough is very soft, place in freezer for 10 minutes. Brush egg white onto top of crust and sprinkle evenly with remaining 1 tablespoon sugar.

Bake until top crust is golden, about 25 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 375 degrees and continue baking until juices bubble and crust is deep golden brown, 30 to 35 minutes longer.

Transfer pie to rack and allow to cool to almost room temperature, at least 4 hours.

Variations

Apple Pie with Crystallized Ginger: Follow above recipe, adding 3 tablespoons chopped crystallized ginger to filling.

Apple Pie with Dried Fruit: Soak 1 cup raisins, dried sweet cherries or dried cranberries in the lemon juice and 1 tablespoon apple jack, brandy or cognac. Add soaked fruit with liquid to filling before baking.

Apple Pie with Fresh Cranberries: Follow above recipe for apple pie, increasing sugar to 1 cup and adding 1 cup fresh or frozen cranberries to apple mixture.

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