Produce News for Week of August 16, 2010

YUKON GOLD POTATOES (Monday, August 16): This week 1869 they discovered gold in the Yukon Territory so I thought I’d talk about gold – Yukon gold potatoes. You know, when these first came out 20 years ago, I used to sell to restaurants. And restaurant chefs just could not get enough of these Yukon Golds. It was something very different than Red, White or Russet. And they had such great flavor. And then, of course growers around the country from Colorado and Nebraska and just about everywhere, they started planting more acres of Yukon gold, and that’s why we’re seeing more supplies of these beautiful Yukon gold. This was one of the big gold discoveries of the 1980’s in the culinary field. Just cut one in half and you’ll see why. It looks like there is butter inside. You make mashed potatoes out of these. You grill these. You sauté these. Whatever you do with russet potatoes, you can do with the Yukon gold. Whatever you do with Red or White Potatoes, you can do with the Yukon Gold. You make fantastic potato salad out of them. They are one of these best potatoes, all around potatoes, that you can buy. Have you discovered Gold yet? Yukon gold.
KIWI (Tuesday, August 17): If you came over to my home, you would notice that I keep my Kiwi covered. That’s right. The kiwi fruit should be covered. When you want to ripen your kiwi fruit, please keep them covered. You can put newspaper over them, or a clean dish towel. Why do you keep them covered? Well, you see, there are no natural oils on the kiwi fruit, and if there are no natural oils and you leave them in the open air, they will just shrivel and dehydrate before they ripen. How do you eat your Kiwi? Is that a personal question? Well, there are three fun ways to eat your kiwi fruit. One way is you can cut them in half. I know a lot of people do this, and they’ll take their spoon and they’ll neatly just spoon out the kiwi fruit like they’re eating yogurt. Or you can take that cut half when they are ripe. Simply squeeze the end, and the fruit will simply pop right out. Kind of like a Popsicle. Or there’s the third way you can eat your kiwi fruit. I love doing this with kids. I do a lot of speaking at schools. Come on, just take it in your hand like an apple, and bite it. Look if you eat a Peach with the fuzz on, you can eat a Kiwifruit with the fuzz on. You’ll get more vitamins and minerals and fiber in your diet that way.
SWEET POTATOES (Wednesday, August 18): Hey, this week President Bill Clinton turns 64 years old so I thought I’d talk about his most favorite vegetable on the…no! Not French fries! His most favorite vegetable on the face of the planet – beautiful sweet potatoes. That’s right. Absolutely gorgeous sweet potatoes. You know, we get sweet potatoes 365 days out of the year. I love that, but in the summertime, that’s when supplies are at their lowest. And prices are at their highest. Even so, Sweet Potatoes are a very healthy snack for kids in the summer. A lot cheaper than a bag of chips…and a whole lot healthier too. In the summertime, your kids are playing hard. They come in and they are hungry. What a great easy and simple snack just to turn these into sticks. It’s a quick, easy snack. In fact your kids, I guarantee you, your kids will love them too. Just don’t tell them this: Sweet potatoes happen to be the healthiest vegetable grown on the face of planet Earth.
CURLY ENDIVE (Thursday, August 19): Holy Toledo! Don King, you know, the boxing promotor – he turns 79 this week so I thought it would be fun to talk about the Don King of produce. Walk down the produce aisle. You’ll find it in the Lettuce section. It’s curly endive. There’s endive and then there’s curly endive. Go ahead. Pick one up by the cut end. Take a look. It does look like Don King’s hairdo. Doesn’t it? Now one of the first things I do when I go up to a head of this in the grocery store, I would just grab it and turn it over. You want to see if the curly leaves will stand up, kind of like soldiers in line. If the Curly Endive is old, the leaves will be wilty and they wouldn’t stand up straight. What do you do with Curly Endive? Simple. Chop it up into your summer lettuce salads. Because of the texture of this lettuce, it actually “fluffs up” your summer salad and it makes it look like you actually have more salad on your plate. So if you’ve never tried curly endives, this is a good time of year to try it in your summer salads.
PINEAPPLE (Friday, August 20): Hey, this week in 1969 Hawaii became our 50th state. Thank goodness! Now a lot of people have a place to go on honeymoons and for 50 years, we have been getting beautiful pineapple from Hawaii. Absolutely gorgeous. Hawaii got America hooked on Pineapple. They got us to fall in love with the armored tropical fruit. I get a lot of questions – how do you pick out good pineapple? Well, the first thing I look at is the crown. Is the crown pretty, green and velvety? Or do you see a lot of brown, dried leaves on the crown? A brown crown is on an old Pineapple. Once you find a Pineapple with a fresh crown, simply pick it up. It should feel like a bowling ball in your hand. That means there is a lot of juice and sugar in there. Then check out the eyes of the Pineapple. They have a saying in Hawaii that the “eyes tell the story.” All of those things on the Pineapple that look like armored plates, each one of those is an eye of the fruit. They should be very plump. Shiny. Finally, turn the fruit over to the bottom. Give it a sniff. If it smells like Hawaii, that’s a good Pineapple. Get out your hoola skirt. We’re going to have a luau tonight.