Produce News for Week of July 12, 2010

RINSING SALAD (Monday, July 12): Okay, how many of you rinse your summer salads in tap water? With my handy dandy probe thermometer…I can test the temperature of the tap water. It’s seventy degrees. Folks, that is way too warm to rinse off your salad greens. So here’s what I want you to do with your salads. You’re going to get your salad into the colander and then what you will go over to the freezer, get some ice. Ice goes right on the lettuce in the colander. Now you are ready to rinse your salad with water. Don’t soak the lettuce. We want to rinse it with ice water. With the ice on there…now we can take that seventy degree water and now we can rinse that, and now you have ice cold water rinsing your salad. That is the perfect way to rinse your summer salads on a hot summer day.
PANDOL GRAPES (Tuesday, July 13): Hey, the boys of summer are playing today…Major League Baseball All Star game. That means the joys of summer…beautiful grapes are in full peak supply. I wanted to introduce you something brand new. You may start finding some in the supermarkets, maybe not every supermarket this year, certainly next year. They’re testing it. Pandol Grapes…in a cute little plastic cube. Holy cow! Jack Pandol, one of the leaders in grape production here in the United States and even in Chile. They’ve come up with this cool package. I call this a colander on the go. That’s what it is. It’s basically a colander. It’s very, very simple. If you’re heading out to the park, or a picnic or to the river, you stop by the store and grab one of these Pandol Grapes in the cute little plastic cube. Now, you don’t have to go home and get the colander. You just simply pour water into this cute cube. Shake it a bit, let it drain. No serve. How simple is that. What a cool new idea.
BING CHERRIES (Wednesday, July 14): Beautiful Bing cherries - this is one of the things they won’t have at the British Open. My goodness! They don’t grow Bing cherries over there. California, Oregon, and Washington are growing our Bing cherries right now. When you’re at the store or at the farmer’s mark, look at the color. It should have a dark mahogany color. One of the things I’ve noticed this year, and I’ve gotten comments from viewers and readers, they get their Bing cherries home and they say, “Mike, like the next day or two, they’re all moldy. What’s causing that?” Well, you do rememberCalifornia had one of the wettest springs and early summer rainstorms that they’ve ever had, and that means there’s a lot of moisture on the Bing cherries which means mold can easily grow. Here’s what you do. It’s very simple. Put your Cherries single layer on a cookie sheet. Put that in the refrigerator. That will help reduce mold build up because there is more ventilation on the Cherries.
RAINIER CHERRIES (Thursday, July 15): Oh, my goodness! One of the most beautiful produce items. You walk down the produce aisle, and you see the gorgeous Rainier Cherry. If you see me handling Rainier Cherries, you would notice that I treat them extremely gently. The Rainier is probably one of the most finicky produce items ever grown on face of the planet. They may be gorgeous…but they are finicky. Beautiful cream color with that absolutely gorgeous blush on it. They’re finicky how they’re grown. Growers have to very particular with them. They are very finicky when they are picked. Growers have to remind the harvesters to be gentle with their hands. Use tender hands. Because when they pull these off the tree they have to be very gentle on the skin because they will bruise very, very easily. But right now this is peak of the season Rainier cherries from Washington state. That’s right. You thought Washington State was apples. Oh, this time of year…absolutely gorgeous Rainier cherries.
BLACKBERRIES (Friday, July 16): Oh, my goodness! Get the vanilla ice cream or the whipped cream. It is time for blackberry cobbler. Oh, I absolutely love it. Yeah, I could gain 100 lbs. just eating my blackberry cobbler. One of the first things you notice when you get out your blackberries this year is you’re going to notice a lot smaller berries. That’s right. The berries are actually much smaller this year, and you’re probably thinking, “What’s up with that? Are the growers just picking them earlier?” No, it has nothing to do with the growers. The growers are doing everything they can. If you rememberCalifornia and Oregon had a lot of cool weather. In fact it was one of the coolest Mays they ever had. So what that means is that there’s a lot of berries on the vines, but they don’t gain any size. That’s right. They just stay small, and then all of a sudden late in June, the heat came. Well, that ripens all of those berries on the vine before they can get larger. Don’t worry. They may be smaller, but they’re still going to be just as sweet. You know how I can tell? Look at those drupelets on the berry. The druplets are big on here. That means they are going to be sweet.