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Produce News for December 7, 2009

 

STRAWBERRIES (Monday, December 7):  Where in the world are we getting strawberries?  Beautiful strawberries.  Now, my goodness!  Strawberries, you know most people thought of as a spring crop and then of course it expanded to summer and then fall and virtually we have fresh strawberries…and look how shiny these are!  These are absolutely gorgeous.  And the size and color are fantastic!  So we virtually have strawberries 365 days out of the year grown right here in the United States of America.  So where are these coming from?  They’re coming from actually Southern California, from Oxnard and Santa Maria.  What they have done, they have tricked the strawberry plants to believe they’ve already had a winter.  That’s right.  They do that by placing the plants at high elevations, high plateaus.  It tricks the plants into thinking they’ve had a winter.  Now they’re ready to grow.  So then they put those in the ground and this time of year, voila, we’re getting absolutely gorgeous strawberries.  Now I know they tend to be a bit more expensive this time of year but hey, the holidays are coming up so you can afford to be a little more extravagant.  I’m Michael Marks…Your Produce Man.    (Takes bite)  Mmm.
 
 
SATSUMA MANDARINS (Tuesday, December 8):  A decade ago this tangerine right here, you’d have it for a week or two and then it was gone, but every year since then…oh, my goodness!  This tangerine, this particular tangerine has become so popular.  It is a Satsuma mandarin.  Now why do we love these so much? Well, let me give you a hint.  First of all, it has what we call a zipper peel which means it peels very, very easily and not a lot of the white pith stays on the fruit which means you don’t have a lot of bitterness.  Also, there are brand new studies, oh let me tell you about this.  Synephrine, that’s a natural decongestant.  These are loaded with synephrine, and what that means, you know, pack these with the kids so when they go to school.  Maybe when they get a little cold, they get a little stopped up, they can have a tangerine.   They’re out on the sports field, pop a tangerine in.  (Takes bite)  Oh, I can feel the synephrine decongesting me already!  Plus they taste so good.  I’m Michael Marks.  New crop Satsuma mandarins…Your Produce Man. (Takes Bite)  Mmmm.
 
 
FROZEN VEGETABLES (Wednesday, December 9): Hey, happy birthday.  Clarence Birdseye was born 1886 this very day.  What is that important?  Birdseye – frozen vegetables.  He created the whole deep freezing thing.  Now frozen vegetables…I gotta tell you something.  I grew up on frozen corn and frozen green beans, and…Look, I turned out A-Okay, right?  As long as you’re getting five to nine servings of fruits and vegetables, look.  I’d like if they were fresh but if all you can afford is frozen because they’re so economical, those nice big bags of frozen corn and frozen green beans and frozen broccoli - hey, go for it.  Get frozen just as long as you’re eating…and carrots! My goodness!  A lot of people ask me, “Do you lose any nutrition when they’re frozen?”, and the answer is no.  There has been study after study after study at the universities and around the world that you lose very, very little nutrition if you buy frozen vegetables versus fresh.  So if that is all you can afford, hey, why not?  I’m Michael Marks…Your Produce Man. (Takes Bite)
 
 
BARTLETT PEARS (Thursday, December 10):    Would you take a look at this?  My beautiful Bartlett pears.  Now this one’s gorgeous over here but these!  Oh, my goodness!  They like ripen overnight.  Well, I do need to tell you a secret about Bartlett pears.  Bartlett pears are what we call the summer pear.  They start harvesting in July and August, and they’re all done harvesting now and all the Bartlett pears, whether it’s California or the northwest, most actually out of the northwest right now are all out of storage which means they’ve been harvested for a couple months already; but when the come out of storage, they ripen very fast.  So here is what I suggest you do.  In order to keep from getting these nice…uh, oh.  You don’t do that.  Don’t drop them.  In order to keep from getting them overripe, take these pears.  Put them in the refrigerator, and keep them a little bit colder than you normally would.  Now I know I tell you to leave them out on the countertop to ripen, but since they ripen so fast, put them in the refrigerator.  When you need them in a couple days, then take them out of the refrigerator. They’ll be ripe in a matter of a couple of days.  I’m Michael Marks…Your Produce Man.
 
  
PARSNIPS (Friday, December 11):  Hey, this week a very famous actor, director, Kenneth Branagh from Ireland turned 49 this week.  So I was with him actually at a show in the Bay Area in San Francisco, California, and I asked him, “Hey, what’s your favorite fruit and vegetable?”  It’s not a question he gets very often.  And he told me, “Hey, I’m from Ireland.  I love…that’s right…parsnips.  Absolutely loves parsnips, and there’s good reason.  Parsnips are very, very sweet, but there’s a couple things you need to know about parsnips.  First of all, what I want you to do is I want you to cut off the root end here, and now you’re left with the bit fat end we call it.  What you need to do, you need to cut this in half, and see this core?  Take a look at this core.  See that core right there?  You need to cut that core out because that core is like…it’s like wood.  It’s like a redwood tree in the middle there so you’ve got to cut that core out, but the rest of it is totally fine.  Now what do you do with parsnips? Oh, if you’re trying to get your kids or your family to try more vegetables, may I suggest you make your world famous mashed potatoes.  Take a couple parsnips and boil them.  Put them in the mashed potatoes.  I’m Michael Marks…Your Produce Man.