The first Honeycrisp of the year carries more significance than any piece of fruit should. Its annual appearance in September’s produce aisle—a brindled globe of green, yellow, and red—is still a shock to me. Shelves on each side are stocked with plastic cartons of withering raspberries and the last crate of pluots, still summer-sweet but invariably mushy-bottomed. The lustre of summer is spent. The bin of Honeycrisp apples—peeking out from beneath the words, “NEW CROP” — announces that fall is on our doorstep.