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Produce News for January 4, 2009

 

MIREPOIX (Monday, January 4):  Yes, it is National Diet Week, so of course you’re going to get out your soup pan, your stew pan.  We’re going to make a few more soups and stews, but virtually every soup, every stew begins with the same thing.  It is the holy trinity of soups and stews.  Check this out.  It is called a fancy French word called mirepoix.  Basically that means you’ve cut up some celery.  You’ve cut up some onions, and you’ve cut up some carrots. And that becomes your mirepoix.  This becomes what you put in the bottom of your stew pot and your soup pot, and that is what we…oh, man!  A little bit of olive oil in there.  Begin cooking that.  You can smell it all over the house.  It smells so good.  Now why is this mirepoix so good?  Let me tell you a couple secrets about it.  First of all, the celery puts so much flavor into your soups and stews.  The carrots and onions…actually when you cook them, the carrots and onions become so much sweeter.  So in a savory soup or stew, it has such a wonderful flavor - starts with mirepoix – the holy trinity.  I’m Michael Marks…Your Produce Man.   
 
NAVEL ORANGES (Tuesday, January 5):  All right.  Finishing up the last navel orange.  We are making some…oh, take a look at this.  Let me pour this right here.  Ho, ho, ho.  Look at that.  Yeah, I’ve made some orange juice with my navel oranges here, and I get the question all the time about navel orange juice.  You know, you make a lot of juice with navel oranges.  Then you put it in a container and put it in the refrigerator.  The next day you go to drink it, it’s soured already.  Let me tell you why.  This is what’s called a juicing orange right here.  It’s called a Valencia orange.  Now Valencia orange has seeds in them.  There is a chemical in an orange that causes the juice to sour.  That chemical is found in the seeds of a Valencia orange.  Now a navel orange, as you well know, has no seeds. Right?  It’s seedless.  So that means the chemical that causes the juice to go sour is found in the juice or in the flesh of the orange.  So that way when you make the navel orange juice it goes bad almost overnight.  So make the navel orange juice, but just drink it up.  I’m Michael Marks…Your Produce Man. (Takes Drink)  Mmmm.
 
GRAPEFRUIT (Wednesday, January 6): It is the original diet fruit.  It was a huge craze.  I remember when I first got in the produce industry, it was like the huge craze.  Everybody had to have grapefruit.  Now I know our store, man, we ran out of grapefruit.  It was called the grapefruit diet.  And there it…oh, ho.  Will you take a look at that grapefruit.  I mean, just looking at that grapefruit…my wife, she takes the grapefruit and she peels it just like you and I peel an orange, and she takes those little sections and eats them.  And I’ll tell you seomthing, there are some chemicals found in grapefruit that literally have been shown to prove in health studies around the world, it is the original health diet fruit, and there’s good reason why.  And they’re so good.  And the crop is fantastic.  We have Texas.  We have Florida so there’s pl…by the way, this grapefruit is not like the grapefruit that your grandparents used to eat.  You don’t have to get out the bowl of sugar for this. The only thing you need for this is a knife to cut it in half and a spoon to eat it with.  I’m Michael Marks…Your Produce Man. (Takes Bite)  Mmmm.

 

SHRIVELED APPLES (Thursday, January 7):    Okay.  I’ve got the secret from some of the best pastry chefs found anywhere on the face of the…pastry chef.  That is the best job in any restaurant.  They get to make all the desserts.  Right?  The pastry chef.  So here’s the secret to apples.  First of all, every once in a while I want you to go through your apples and I want you to just put your thumbs together like this and rub them.  Sometimes the apple starts to shrivel.  That one shriv…oh, this one is shriveling.  Take a look at that.  I do not want you to throw these apples.  In fact you can see the shriveling there.  Do not throw them out.  Here’s what I want you to do.  I just want you to collect them.  Right?  So you’ve got all these shriveled apples…there’s another one.  Gonna collect this.  Kids won’t want it because it’s not gonna, you know, be very crispy.  So you collect them all.  I want you to put them together.  When you have enough for a pie or an apple tart, then I want you to take the shriveled apples.  That’s right, because the sugars have just like joined together so much in these apples.  I guarantee you, you are going to have the best apple pie on the face of the planet, the best apple dessert by using shriveled apples.  I’m Michael Marks…Your Produce Man.
  
MACARONI AND CHEESE AND CILANTRO (Friday, January 8):   This time of year you want some comfort food.  Right?  I mean everybody…it’s getting cold.  You want to snuggle up.  You want some meat, mashed potatoes and gravy, meatloaf, and maybe some macaroni and cheese?  Oh, ho!  Well, that’s comfort food for the little Marks brothers any time of the year, especially this time of year.  They love mac and cheese.  But right under here…I wanted to show you the secret ingredient to the best macaroni and cheese that you will ever have on the face of the planet.  Are you ready for this?  It’s called, big reveal, here it is.  That’s right.  Cilantro!  I know, you probably never thought.  Cilantro?  In my macaroni and cheese?  Just before you are done with your macaroni and cheese, I want you to chop up some cilantro, about half a bunch, into your macaroni and cheese.  Chop it up and put it into your macaroni and cheese.  Fold it into your macaroni and cheese the last one minute of the cooking time, and you will have some of the best macaroni and cheese you have ever eaten in your life. I’m Michael Marks…Your Produce Man.