Produce News for March 2, 2009

KIWI (PART I) (Monday, March 2): So, I love kiwi fruit. They’re so good for you – the most nutritious fruit grown on planet Earth. How do you eat a kiwi fruit? Well, there’s lots of different ways. You can do it like I’m doing it here where you cut off the north pole and the south pole and just simply…now you can slice it with no skin on. You can get one of these cool kiwi fruit scoops. These are really nifty. Knife on one end, and just cut it in half. There’s a scoop on the other end and just scoop it out. Or if you don’t have one of these, just use a knife and a spoon. You can do that, or you can do this. You can take the kiwi fruit. Come really close. Come really close. Yeah. You’re going to do this, and then take a bite. (Takes Bite) That’s right. You can eat a kiwi fruit with the skin on. Oh, that’s so good!

KIWI (PART II) (Tuesday, March 3): You know, I travel around. I do a lot of speeches, especially a lot of schools, you know, elementary school kids. One of the things I love to do…I’ll bring up three or four of the little kids, and I’ll get them to eat kiwi fruit. One of my missions in life is to get you to enjoy the most nutritious food grown on planet Earth, and that is indeed a kiwi fruit. Now yesterday I showed you a couple ways of how to eat a kiwi fruit. This way I think you’re going to love, especially, you know, kids are going to love this because you’ve heard of those “push up popsicles” right? Well, we’re going to do the same thing. What we’re going to do, we’re going to cut this in half. Now what you’re going to do, you’re going to take the end and you’re just going to simply push it up. Press it on the end. Look at this. It comes out of the skin just like one of those cool popsicle things that you used to push up. Now you can just eat the thing, and it’s really cool. So…so many ways to eat your kiwi fruit. Wow!

BLOOD ORANGES (Wednesday, March 4): This is one of the best seasons I have seen for this particular orange right here. I’ve been in the produce industry for 30 years now. And, you know, when I first started in the produce industry, you rarely saw these. In fact, the only time I saw them was when there was a special order for these. So what are these? They look just like an orange on the outside. Well, they actually do. It’s kind of like a navel orange or seedless, but let me turn it around. Take a look at this. This is called a Moro blood orange. I know! Who in their right mind would name this a “blood orange” for crying out loud? That is like one of the worst marketing ploys you could possibly use to try to sell something, but folks, this orange this year this season - one of the best looking oranges I have seen in many, many years. And when you take a bite out of this, (gasp) man, the floral essence, the aroma you get…it is unbelievable. Fantastic for any Mediterranean cooking!

PINATA APPLES (Thursday, March 5):   Oh, my goodness! I love it every other year or so you come up with some new apples. Right here. One of the best apples that you are ever going to find. It’s brand new. It’s called a pinata apple, and they named it a pinata because it is a surprise. You take a bite out of this apple - oh, my goodness! The flavor! This actually came from Germany. There are three different apples in this apple. There is a golden delicious in here which, of course, I call the all purpose apple. There is also a Cox’s pippin orange which is an old English variety, and then also in here, get this, a very old German apple called a Dutchess of Oldenburg. You put all three of those together and you have an apple that aboslutely looks gorgeous and has that Old World flavor. You’ve been looking for a brand new apple? You’ve got to try a Pinata. Man, is it a great surprise!

FUJI APPLES (Friday, March 6):All right. I’ve got my Fuji apples, and I’ve got my knife. So I want you to stay back because we’re going to be cutting these apples. Stay back. I don’t want to hurt anybody. Ready? Oh, there’s a little bit there. I’ll tell you what I’m looking for after I cut a few of these. Ah, there’s a little bit there. I’ll cut this one in half too. Oh, a little bit there. I know some of you…you get your Fuji apples home and you cut them in half and you see this little translucent dark…little bit there. But here. I’m going to show you this right here. See this translucent brownishness right around the core? That is what we in the industry call water core. Now I know when you cut that in half…and sometimes it actually gets even worse than that. My goodness! The brown is all around and it’s really significant. But I know most of you would probably take that back…you know, give it back to the produce guy and say, “Hey, I want my money back or give me some more.” That is actually called water core. Do not in a million years take those back because those are going to be your sweetest Fuji apples.