Produce News for February 16, 2009

FENNEL (Monday, February 16):   Hey, Happy Presidents’ Day. We’re honoring, of course, Abraham Lincoln and George Washington, but also one of our early presidents…actually he was the third President of the United States also wrote the Declaration of Independence. He loved favorite this particular vegetable. It was his favorite vegetable. He planted these at Monticello. That’s right, Thomas Jefferson. He actually brought seeds of this from Italy. This is called fennel or Florence fennel. You might also know it as sweet anis. But I thought I’d bring it in because this time of year because I love clam chowders. Just give me some clam chowder and some bread, and I’m a happy guy. But one of the best secrets to clam chowder is not the bulb. No you can use the bulb for other things. See this fern on top? I always buy fennel with the fern on top because if I’m going to make some clam chowder, I’m going to chop up some of this fern into my clam chowder. I guarantee you, if you do that, you will have people say, “Whoa! That’s the best clam chowder you’ve ever made!”

TOMATOES (Tuesday, February 17):  Hey, this week in 1819 the United States acquired a state. Well, it then became a state, but Florida, acquired the land of Florida from Spain. Thank goodness we did because now, oh, if it wasn’t for Florida we wouldn’t have these beautiful tomatoes, especially this time of year. In fact this time of year Florida grows…Wow! About 50% of all the tomatoes used in North America so that’s really important. You would think, you know, Florida, if you’ve ever been to Florida it’s sand everywhere…just sand, but those growers are some of the best growers in the world, producing some of the best Roma tomatoes, grape tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, some of the best vine-ripened tomatoes that you’ve ever seen on the face of the planet coming right there from the Sunshine State, from Florida. By the way, when you get your Sunshine State tomatoes home, please make sure they are fully ripened. Just put them out on the counter top, cover them up, and let them fully ripen so you’ll find the full flavor of a Florida tomato.

BUTTER LEAF LETTUCE (Wednesday, February 18):  Hey, this week in the 81st Academies, that’s right, in the starring role at dinner, actually the salad portion of dinner is going to be beautiful butter leaf lettuce. Now when you’re picking out butter leaf lettuce, one of the first things I’m going to do, I’m going to turn it over and I’m going to see it has turned into a head, because if its really fluffy like this one here…this is really fluffy and there’s hardly any head in there at all which means you’re going to get very, very little yield out of it. So I want to make sure that there’s a nice little head of butter leaf down there. Now actually, you know, the butter leaf that I really love…take a look at this. I don’t know whoever came up with this stuff, but this live butterleaf lettuce, oh my goodness! This stuff…they need a Nobel Prize for this because you pay a little bit more for this, but oh, it lasts like forever. Okay, well not forever but it lasts a long time. You’ll never throw butter leaf lettuce away. You just pick off what you need and put the rest in the refrigerator.

GRAPEFRUIT (Thursday, February 19):  Hey, they’re celebrating their independence in Saint Lucia. 1979 they won their independence…well, they didn’t win it, they were given their independence from Great Britain. What does that have to do with produce? Well, it has a lot to do with produce because, see grapefruit is the only fruit or the only citrus that originated outside of China. All other citrus originated in China, but there was an admiral in the Queen’s navy that took what we call Chinese grapefruit or Shaddock’s fruit, pomelo, took it to the Caribbean mto Saint Lucia island, and there on St. Lucia island the pomelo crossed with a sweet orange, and guess what we got? We got grapefruit…that’s right, originated in Saint Lucia island. In fact, in the island is where they started calling it grapefruit because they looked up in the trees and they said, “Hey, that fruit is growing like in clusters just like grapes so they said, ‘We’ll call it grapefruit.’” So thank you Saint Lucia and thank you to grapefruit. This is peak of the season, by the way, for beautiful red and pink grapefruit.

ASPARAGUS (Friday, February 20):  Hey, you know, this week in 1972, our President, President Nixon, was our very first president to go to Communist China, and with him on Air Force 1 he took a gift for China, and he also served it at the embassy there…beautiful California asparagus. That’s right. They’re just now starting to harvest California asparagus – first from the desert, then Salinas, then the Delta region. We’re still getting asparagus though from Mexico and Peru…beautiful supplies of asparagus. Now why would he take asparagus? Asparagus is one of those classy vegetables, and I’m so glad we’re starting to see it year round. I remember when I first started in the produce industry, you would see asparagus like in the springtime and that was it. No more for the rest of the year. So for three to four months, asparagus. But now, oh, you can get the classy vegetable all year long. Make sure you look at these tips. They need to be really tight. That is a sign of a good spear of asparagus.