Produce News for January 5, 2009

PARSLEYS (Monday, January 5):  Have you heard of Nankusa?  It is a festival in Japan.  Actually it dates all the way back to the seventh century.  It’s where seven different plants were served to the emperor of Japan to keep him healthy.  One of those plants – are you ready?  It was actually an herb called parsley.   Now, do you know your parsley?  I’ve got three different parsleys up here, and I want to know if you know the difference between these parsleys.  Well, you know this one right - this curly parsley?  Everybody knows this parsley.  That’s the one you see on dinner plates all over the place.  Then, of course, you have cilantro.  (Sniffs)  Oh!  You can just smell cilantro.  It’s absolutely fantastic!  Then, of course, you have flat leaf parsley which is like curly parsley only it is flat leaf.  In fact, chefs all around the country…they love flat leaf parsley. They chop it up and put it into all kinds of different soups and stews and as confetti over things.  It’s fantastic tasting.  So if you’ve lost track of parsley, try the different parsleys that are around. 

RADISHES (Tuesday, January 6)  Hey, take a look.  I’ve got my…I’ve got my radishes right in here.  Yesterday we were talking about Nankusa – it’s a festival in Japan where they celebrate the seven plants served to  the early emperors of Japan.  Yesterday it was parsley.  Today – radishes, beautiful radishes.  And there are many, many different varieties of radishes.  This is the main variety, of course, that we see in the grocery stores today.  There is also daikon radish.  It’s this long white thing.  You’ve probably wondered, “What is that?”  This is daikon radish - very, very popular in Asian cultures…but for you and me, we really love this radish.  Now one of the first things you need to do when you get home is take the leaves off the bulb or take the bulb off the leaves, whichever the case is, and just get a Tupperware and fill it with water.  Don’t fill it up all the way because you’re putting radishes in there.  Then just put the lid on and store that.  Those bulbs will keep right in here forever.  Well, not forever but for a long time.  Hey, try using radishes in your tacos.  How about in your clam chowder too? 

ORANGES (Wednesday, January 7):  Do you remember this?  Meadowlark Lemon…oh, my goodness!  He’d be at half court.  He’d take that basketball and he’d, you know, hook it half court into the basket.   You know, the Harlem Globetrotters?  Man, they’ve been entertaining Americans and around the world since 1929.  One of the things I learned about the Harlem Globetrotters, actually from their coach and some of the players, whenever they play in high altitude areas such as Denver and Mexico City they always eat tons of oranges before the game, and there are actually some new studies that have just recently come out that say there is a chemical in oranges that helps you breathe better.  It helps move oxygen throughout your blood stream, so it actually helps you breath better.  So when you’re out playing and you’re getting hard of breath, just remember, “I’d better have some oranges, and I’ll breathe better.”  By the way…these oranges, oh, my goodness!  It froze in the San Joaquin Valley in California.  It didn’t freeze hard but just enough to load these up with sugar.  Oh, they taste so good! 

AVOCADOS PART I  (Thursday, January 8):  BCS NCAA Championship football game today.  What an exciting game that’s going to be.  Do you have your guacamole ready?  Do you have your avocados ready for guacamole?  I thought it would be important to show you exactly how you should cut and get the pit out of that avocado.  So what we’re going to do, we’re going to take these ripe avocados.  You’re going to take your knife, and you’re actually going to take the tip of the knife and put the tip of the knife into the neck of the avocado.  That’s actaully called the neck up there.  So you put it into the neck.  Then this is really important.  Don’t move the knife.  The more you move a knife in a kitchen, the more likelihood you can  cut yourself.  So instead of moving the knife, move the fruit right around the knife just like so.  Now you take that avocado and it twists right in half.  (Gasp)  What are we going to do with this pit?  Now I know they say take a spoon and dip it out, but here’s what I say.  Just put it down on the countertop and take your knife.   Whack that thing and it comes right out.  Oh ho!  Now you’re ready to make your guacamole. 



AVOCADOS PART II (Friday, January 9):  What a bummer! You went to make your BCS championship football game guacamole yesterday and you got to the avocados and you picked up the avocados.  Oh!  They were rock hard!  You felt the poor things, and they were just rock hard.  You can’t serve that for guacamole.   You just can’t serve that for anything.  So I need to prepare you for the next big game which is going to be what?  Yeah.  Super bowl, just a few weeks around the corner, right?  So here’s what you need to do.  These are Hass avocados, the premiere avocado for making guacamole.  It has the best flavor.  The best oil content.  You can buy a dead green avocado and it will turn beautiful black and ripe oh perfectly, but here’s what you need to do.  You need to enclose them.  I have found a shoebox…put them in a shoebox.  Cover it up.  Put it in your laundry room.  It’s moist and warmer in there than most other rooms in your house.  In a couple of days they…if they’re taking too long, put a ripe banana in there too.