Produce News for January 19, 2009

PEACHES (Monday, January 19):  Right here – new crop…new crop peaches. Let me take a look at these. These are some of the very first that we’ve seen come in, and very typical for first of the season peaches out of Chile (it happens to be summertime down there), I want you to see how small these are. And if you notice, they rattle a lot in this box which means, you know, they’re really pushing the…they call these a 48 or a 50 size, but these are actually very, very small. So a couple things about new crop peaches and nectarines that you have to be aware of: First of all, they are small. They always start out small whether it’s domestically grown or whether it’s grown in the Southern Hemisphere. First of the season, always smaller. Second of all, they tend to pick it a little bit on the immature side because, you know, like any grower they want more money for their fruit, so if you’ll pay more, man the…so what you need to do…you need to turn the fruit over. Look at the stem end, not at the blossom end, but look at the stem end. If there is more green than yellow, that fruit will never ripen, but if there is more yellow than green, then that fruit will ripen on you.  

NECTARINES (Tuesday, January 20):  Man, I’ve seen a lot of produce boxes, but what in the world is this? You know, usually you can tell by the label, so let’s turn it around. Let’s look at this label. That says Alfani? Brown? Uh, what in the world? Oh, this is my wife’s shoebox! Actually, I grabbed a shoebox from my beautiful and lovely wife Julie. I have no idea what shoes were in here, but I took the shoes out and I placed in here something very special. I placed one layer of nectarines. This is the best way of ripening your peaches and nectarines. One layer. Do not stack them up. One layer. Put the lid on and then put this into your laundry room. Now see, your laundry room is usually one of your warmest places in the house because you’re running your dryer and, you know, hot water for your washer, and it’s a little bit more humid in there. So I guarantee you when you pull these out…it’s taken these about a week, but right now these are absolutely perfect. My wife is going to love these. It is her favorite fruit – a nectarine. 

HARD WINTER SQUASH (PART I) (Wednesday, January 21):  Look at all these beautiful hard winter squash! You know, when I first started in the produce industry…what? Over 30 years ago now, holy Toledo! You would find winter squash in the winter, and that’s about the only time you could find it. Now, of course, you can find most of these winter squash all year round, 365 days out of the year. However, there’s a reason why we should eat more winter squash in the winter. And look at all these different varieties. Let’s start right over here with this big one. Man, this is one of my favorites. It’s called a butternut. You’ve got a Danish squash or acorn squash, spaghetti squash, and this here is one of my favorite as well. It’s called a Delicata. It has a beautiful corn flavor. So why should we eat more hard winter squash in the wintertime? It’s because, two things. Number one: There’s more calories in here. Our bodies need more calories in the winter because we need to stay warmer. That right. That way you can turn down the temperature on the dial in the house and save money that way. Number 2: More vitamin A in hard winter squash and that is good for our eyes because there is less daylight hours. 

HARD WINTER SQUASH (PART II) (Thursday, January 22):  You know, you get your hard winter squash home and now what do you do with it? Where do you store it? I know some of people have stored their hard winter squash in the refrigerator like regular zuccini or yellow squash. (Gasp) Never in a million years should you put your hard winter squash in the refrigerator. It will get what we call chill damage. What you need to do is just leave your hard winter squash out at room temperature. In fact, what we love to do, we have a really nice long dish, and we will put the hard winter squash into the dish and it becomes a nice…you know, you can look at it, and it is a nice visual for the wintertime, and then when we need a hard winter squash, we’ll go grab one and start cooking it. But the reason I like to leave it out instead of refrigerate it, it keeps these sweeter. In fact, the longer you leave hard winter squash at room temperature the sweeter they get. So if you love hard winter squash and you love the sweetness of it, keep it out of the refrigerator. 



HARD WINTER SQUASH (PART III) (Friday, January 23):  All right. So we’re ready to make a hard winter squash soup or maybe we’ll roast some or maybe we’ll bake some tonight, but how do you deal with this stuff? I mean, you get out your big knife and you go to cut these things, and man, it’s hard winter squash. The shell is so hard. So how do you get into these things, especially like the spaghetti squash? Man, it just rolls around on you just like so. Well, here’s what you do. First of all, are you ready for this? I want you to pay very close attention. You’re going to slice off a very thin edge of it just like so. Just like so. Now it kind of sits still on you. Okay? Now it’s sitting still. Now what you can do…you get a big rubber mallet. You probably have a rubber mallet in the garage. You haven’t used it in a long time. Now you have a use for it. Get your big knife. Put it right up here. Take your rubber mallet. Ooh, that was easy. Let’s keep going. Let’s see if we can cut through this thing, and yes, indeed, we cut right through it. And look! I didn’t even cut myself. All my fingers are still here, and I’m ready to prepare my spaghetti squash for dinner tonight.