Produce News for September 29, 2008

LONG PROMO:   Hey, when you pick up your bag of potatoes, I need to tell you what to look for other than just the potatoes.  Plus we have new crop avocados.  I’ll tell you why you need to know that.  Plus new crop pomegranates.  Plus a vegetable that kind of acts like a broccoli and asparagus…next week, with me, Michael Marks, Your Produce Man.

SHORT PROMO:  You need to know about these new crop Haas avocadoes…next week with me, Michael Marks, Your Produce Man.

                                                                                                         

AVOCADOES (Monday, September 29):  Oh, my goodness gracious!  You walk in the produce department.  You walk down to the avocado section.  You need some ripe avocadoes, right?  I mean, you’ve got the college football games.  You’ve got baseball playoffs coming up.  You’ve got football season.  You need some guacamole, but then, take a look at this!  Oh, no way!  They’re green.  And folks, these are going to stay green a little bit longer.  Let me tell you why.  A lot of our avocadoes now are not California Haas avocadoes which have been very ripe, loaded with oil content which means they ripen very fast.  These are imports from either Mexico or Chile.  Now, because they’re from the Southern Hemisphere, it’s a new crop which means they have less oil content.  So, here’s what you need to know.  If you need to ripen this thing for this coming weekend’s guacamole, you need to go to the store today and buy this avocado and put it in a brown paper bag and put it out on the counter.  It will ripen by this weekend.  I’m Michael Marks…Your Produce Man.   

TEASE:  Hey, in my next Produce Man report, how long will it take this Haas avocado to ripen?

POTATOES (Tuesday, September 30)  All right.  You need your spuds for this weekend.  You’re going to make some mashed potatoes, right?  So you go to the store.  You get these 5 lb. potatoes.  These 10 lb. potatoes.  Maybe even a 20 lb. bag of potatoes.  There’s something you need to look for in here other than just the potatoes.   See.  These are new crop potatoes, and what I am now looking for, I’m looking to see a little bit of moisture, and there is indeed moisture in this bag.  Now that doesn’t mean the growers did a bad job, and this does not mean these are bad potatoes.  Oh, no!  Not in the least.  These are what we call newly dug or fresh dug potatoes which means they were dug.  They were washed, and then they were put in the bag without any storage, which means they don’t dry.  So these are wet.  What you need to do when you get these home… you need to open up the bag.  You need to let them air out just a little bit, and then you can put them back in the bag and store them if you like, but you’ve got to air them out or else, man!  They will decay, and oh, they will smell something awful!  I’m Michael Marks…Your Produce Man.  

TEASE: Hey, in my next Produce Man report…is there water in your potato bag? 

LETTUCE  (Wednesday, October 1):  You know this time of year you end up with some good old leaf lettuce.  It’s end of the season for like Salinas and a lot of other locally grown regions like the northeast or New York or  a lot of those places, so it’s the end of the crops for them.  We haven’t started the new crop out of Yuma, Arizona, or the desert.  So what does that mean?  Why would you even care?  Well, since it’s late in the season, that’s when we tend to see a few more bugs on the lettuce.  Bugs?   Oh, they’re little tiny bugs.  You can barely see them.   So, what do you do with these bugs?   Well, first of all, you don’t want them.  What you want to do is you want to fill your sink with water and then put ice in there.  Then you’re going to put your lettuce into the ice cold water.  Now what the ice cold water does is it causes the little bugs hanging onto the leaf, it causes them to…it shocks them and they let go.  Now if they don’t let go and there’s still a few on there, then put a little bit of lemon juice.  Oh, the acid from the lemon juice will really make them let go.  I’m Michael Marks…Your Produce Man.

TEASE: Hey, in my next Produce Man report, what if your lettuce is bugging you?

BROCCOLINI  (Thursday, October 2):  They are the newest vegetable in the produce department.  I love these things.  I’ll show you in just a minute what they are.  They kind of look like a broccoli, a crown of broccoli.  They also kind of look like a spear of asparagus.  So what in the world is it?  Oh, my goodness!  This is broccolini.  I love…sometimes they’re marketed as “aspiration”.  If they say “baby broccoli”, it’s probably the same thing, but it’s not really baby broccoli.  This is actually a cross between broccoli and kailaan which is what we call Chinese kale.  In fact, the little, oh…you see this little yellow right here?  That little yellow, those yellow flowers come from the kailaan, and that’s what gives it its nice spicy flavor.  Now what in the world can you do with broccolini.  Well let me tell you what you can do with broccolini.  Anything you can do with broccoli, you can do with broccolini.  Anything you do  with asparagus, you can do with broccolini.  It’s the newest vegetable.  You’ve got to try it out.  Beautiful broccolini.  I’m Michael Marks…Your Produce Man.  

TEASE:  Hey, in my next Produce Man report, it’s a vegetable that kind of looks like asparagus and kind of looks like broccoli.  What is it?

  

POMEGRANATES (Friday, October 3):  Oh, man!  Pick up this, and these are heavy.  That’s a good sign.  You know what that means?   There’s a lot of juice in my pomegranates.  Oh, I’m going to make some pomegranate pepper jelly I think this coming weekend.  I love pomegranates.  Now, what’s the first thing you look for in pomegranates?  Well, the first thing I look for is I look up at the crown.  Sometimes you will see right around the crown you’ll see a little bit of cracking.  Oh!  I actually…where’s that crack.  I saw a crack there somewhere.  That’s actually a very good sign.  You know why?  It means there’s so much juice in here that it actually started to crack the outside shell of the pomegranate.  That’s a good sign.  That’s what you want – juice, right, from the pomegranate, and it’s so healthy for you.  Now what do you do when you get these home?  I do not refrigerate them.  I keep them out on the counter top.  By the way, they look so beautiful.  It’s a great decoration during the fall time.  Plus, what it does…oh, man!   It makes those juices a lot more accessible when you try to get to them.  Oh, it’s time for pomegranates!  I’m Michael Marks…Your Produce Man. 

TEASE:  Hey, in my next Produce Man report, they may be messy, but it is time for fall pomegranates.