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The Top Specialty Produce of 2018

Here's a top 10 list that will help you shop for the best and most interesting produce.

It's from Melissa's, the largest supplier of variety produce in the USA, which means some 1500 items. The list was determined by sales figures, says Robert Schueller of Melissa's. Here it is:

TOP 10 SPECIALTY PRODUCE ITEMS IN 2018

1. Baby Dutch Yellow Potatoes
2. Baby red potatoes
3. Fresh ginger root
4. Packaged steamed lentils
5. Dragon fruit
6. Packaged steamed beets
7. Ruby gold potatoes
8. Chayote squash
9. Red papaya
10. Jackfruit

It's interesting that jackfruit is at the bottom of the list, because we know how much vegans and vegetarians like it, and for good reason. "It's the only fruit that is a protein," says Schueller (above), holding an example during the annual presentation of produce trends at Melissa's.

Some tips from Schueller:

Large red papayas are a better buy than small papayas. They may cost more but provide more servings--more bang for the buck, in other words.

Baby Dutch Yellow Potatoes (above) are the only potatoes that don't turn green under the skin as they age.

There's another supplier of packaged steamed beets, but Melissa's beets (left) come from France, which makes them elegant as well as delicious. 

Pink dragon fruit with white flesh is the most popular. The newest variety, from Ecuador, is yellow-skinned and very sweet. The yellow dragon fruit in the photo above is from Israel.

And a tip on cooking the 8th place best seller, chayotes (above), from Melissa's chef Tom Fraker: slice them unpeeled and cook on the grill. There's a seed in the center, but it's tender and edible. 

The 2018 top 10 list shows "what consumers are going to be buying more of in 2019," Schueller says. Let's see if that's what happened with the top produce picks in 2017.

TOP 10 SPECIALTY PRODUCE ITEMS IN 2017

1. Baby Dutch Yellow Potatoes
2. Baby red potatoes
3. Fresh ginger root
4. Packaged steamed lentils
5. Packaged steamed baby beets
6. Ruby gold potatoes
7. Dragon fruit
8. Young coconut
9. Kiwano melon
10. Veggie sweet peppers

As you can see, Baby Dutch Yellow Potatoes still head the list, and ginger and lentils retained their position in 2018. Beets dropped a notch to 6th place from 5th. Ruby gold potatoes dropped from 6th to 7th, but dragon fruit rose from 7th place in 2017 to 5th in 2018.

Three from 2017 didn't make the 2018 list. They are young coconut, kiwano melon and veggie sweet peppers. This doesn't mean that they are not big sellers. The tiny sweet peppers can be used in many ways, and the fresh water from young coconuts, like the drinking coconut above, is pure, naturally sweet and good for you. 

But baby red potatoes (above) are the all-time best sellers. They've held second place for the last 10 years. And no wonder. They're delicious, easy to cook and look cute on the plate.

Tasting the Foods of Andalucía

Look at this tempting arrangement of Spanish food. 

Everything on the table was prepared under the direction of Juana Gimeno Faraone, the founder of La Española, the market and meat processor in Harbor City that has provided Spanish ingredients since 1982.

You can get sandwiches and coffee at La Española any day and paella on Saturdays, but this display had a special purpose--to promote the foods of Andalucía in southern Spain. Faraone (above) is from Valencia.

Five representatives of Andalucían products talked about their olive oil, olives, vinegar, ham and canned tuna--not ordinary canned tuna but melva de Andalucía (frigate mackerel). This is a protected species that yields delicious firm, mild meat.

The brand above is packed in sunflower oil. Filippo Orlando of Pesca y Salazones del Suroeste in Ayamonte, Spain, brought it to the tasting.

These sherry vinegars are amazing, a couple of them so rich and concentrated that only a few drops can work magic.

Intense Pedro Ximénez vinegar (second from right) comes from a super sweet dessert wine made from sun-dried Pedro Ximénez grapes. 

Dark, raisiny Arrope, a dessert vinegar (at left), is produced from cooked Palomino and Moscatel grape must and would be heavenly sprinkled over vanilla ice cream. You can get Arrope for as little as $12.99, said Eric Davis, who poured the samples. That's a far-cry from expensive balsamic vinegars. 

Carmen López (above) represented Jaencoop, the second largest producer of olive oil in the world. There are 12 million olive trees in the south of Spain, she said, yielding 67 million kilos of oil each season. Her company deals with 20,000 farmers, has 16 production centers and a lab to monitor quality. 

López proudly talked about Prólogo, which won a silver medal this year at the Los Angeles International Extra Virgin Olive Oil Competition.

Prólogo was entered in the international division of the northern hemisphere judging. It is made from the picual variety of olive. 

You have to have big bucks to buy jamon (ham) ibérico. The price is high because it takes up to five years to process this delectable ham, which comes from black pigs called pata negra because their hooves are black. They're fed on acorns in autumn and winter, said Oscar Lerena of Consorcio de Jabugo, a consortium of six ham companies.

The fat of the ham is a different color from that of other hams, he said, and melts at room temperature. Like olive oil, it is high in oleic acid, a monounsaturated fat. And so Lerena describes a pig that yields jamon ibérico as "an olive tree on legs."

Miriam Vidal Barcenilla of Campomar Nature, a company that specializes in organic products, presented fat green olives for tasting. These are soaked with water and salt for a year, she said. Campomar also produces organic olive oil, almonds, vinegar and wine. 

This wasn't a trade show but an informal gathering for a handful food writers. We sat outside in a tented area, enjoying the tapas and plenty of red wine--Miguel Torres Altos Ibéricos Crianza 2012, a Tempranillo from La Rioja (above).

This is what we ate:

Toast topped with jamon ibérico--what a treat.

Two types of olives, some stuffed with anchovies and others paired with boquerones (cured white anchovies) on picks.

Toast with ham, Spanish fried tomatoes and a quail egg

Little pizzas topped with fresh fava beans, fried tomatoes, ham and cheese.

Black paella with squid, mussels and clams. The paella was made with bomba rice, a short grain rice that absorbs liquid and cooks dry and so is suited to paella but not to risotto. Arborio is best for that soupy dish. 

Quince paste on toast with two kinds of cheeses, topped with walnuts.

Red piquillo peppers stuffed with creamy brandada de bacalao (salt cod).

Blood sausage on toast with caramelized onions.

Afterwards came a shopping spree. I loaded up on Spanish sweets, a half case of the wine we drank and a bottle of olive oil. I couldn't resist crisp almond-shaped wafers filled with almond cream and cakes of apricot and fig paste with almonds (above).  

The sweets have just been put out for holiday shopping. The market (above) is crammed with gift possibilities, including cookbooks, wines, a large stock of olive oils, cheeses, Spanish paprika, jars of Spanish fried tomatoes and Spanish style sausages that are made there. 

 Or how about a Marinesca paella kit (at right in the photo), which includes bomba rice, canned paella ingredients and broth? All you have to do is add liquid. Then pick out a shiny paella pan to go with it.

Thanks to Linda Vesco Burum who coordinated the writers; to Alex Motamedi, La Española's general manager, for helping me choose my purchases; to Jordi Boada of Extenda, the trade promotion agency of Andalucía, and to Doña Juana Faraone for her delicious food.

Photos by Barbara Hansen except for Prólogo

La Española Meats, 25020 Doble Ave., Harbor City, Calif. 90710. Tel: (310) 539-0455.  

A New Place to Buy Indian Breads

These gorgeous golden flatbreads are methi thepla. Embedded with fresh fenugreek leaves (methi), they're  popular in the state of Gujarat in India.

But you don't have to go there to get them. You only have to go to Artesia and the new Pioneer Cash & Carry market. This enormous supermarket opened last October, not far from the original location in the heart of Little India. It's a paradise if you're looking for Indian ingredients--I loaded my cart with things I haven't seen elsewhere.

At one end is a huge bakery. It's glassed in so you can watch as the breads are made (above). If you're mesmerized by machinery in action, you'll be spellbound by two machines so fast they seem like miracle workers. One can turn out 1,000 balls of dough in 10 minutes. The other flattens the balls of dough and bakes them, producing 1,000 breads in an hour.

Devraj and Dhanu Keray own the market. Devraj is tending the machine (above). Dhanu is at the right in yellow. 

The kitchen has a walk-in oven for other breads including the soft white rolls for pav bhaji (above). This is a Mumbai street snack of bread accompanied by a spicy vegetable mixture.

After the bakery tour, the group I was with, the Kitchen Queens, gathered for a vegetarian lunch that included pav bhaji. Above is a homemade vegetable mixture to go with the rolls.

Hot off the griddle, methi thepla was delicious with homemade garlic potatoes and additional vegetable dishes from Jay Bharat, a nearby restaurant (above). Dessert was Indian style ice cream from Saffron Spot. 

This weekend I made my own pav bhaji with rolls I bought at Pioneer (above).  I split these and grilled them in butter.  My vegetable mixture certainly wasn't authentic--I put in poblano chile, celery root and mushrooms as well as tomatoes, potatoes, carrots, onion and cilantro, which are basic.

Because I didn't have pav bhaji masala, which you can get in Indian shops, I substituted garam masala. I also put in cumin seeds, garlic-ginger paste, amchur (mango powder) and added pats of butter for richer flavor. 

My only guidance came from the Internet. Despite its imperfections, my pav bhaji was tasty, and I'll make it again. It's perfect for vegetarians and, eliminating the butter, for vegans too.  

Pioneer Cash & Carry, 11700 183^rd Street, Artesia, Calif. 90701.

Top 10 Ethnic Finds at the Expo

It was great fun, and overwhelming, to jostle my way through the crowds at Natural Products Expo West in Anaheim. Laden with bags of samples and brochures, I went at top speed through aisle after aisle, searching for what interested me--ethnic food.

The Expo was so vast that in the one day I was there I could get to only a fraction of the exhibits. Still, I saw plenty of exciting ethnic products, some of them brand new. Here's my Top 10 list.

1. Filipino convenience food. Filipino cuisine has not yet gone mainstream in the United States, but this may change with the help of ready-to-serve products from Kusina Filipino Kitchen (above).

Interestingly, the package of adobo chicken with rice at the bottom is labeled "tangy chicken," perhaps to avoid confusion with Latino adobos. What makes the chicken tangy is coconut vinegar. Also in the line are sauteed chicken with mildly spicy seasonings, vegetable and chicken spring rolls (lumpia), chicken empanadas and rice noodle stir fry (pancit).

Kusina is Tagalog for kitchen. Manufactured in northern California, the products represent typical Filipino-American homestyle cooking.

The parent company is Ramar Foods, which originated with Ramon and Maria Quesada, who sold Filipino products in northern California. P.J. Quesada (above), from the third generation of the family, has made it his cause to promote Filipino cuisine in the United States. Check out the website for his Filipino Food Movement.

2. Burmese tea leaf salad kit. Tea leaves harvested and fermented in Myanmar (Burma) go into the popular tea leaf salad at Burma Superstar restaurants in the San Francisco Bay area. Just out is a kit with which to reproduce that same salad at home (above).

Labeled Burma Love Laphet, It includes two packets of seasoned fermented tea leaves (laphet) and one of traditional Burmese crunchy mix, composed of roasted peanuts, toasted sesame seeds, fried garlic chips, fried yellow split peas and sunflower seeds. Above are the salad components.

The kit suggests adding lettuce. The salad samples handed out at Expo included diced tomatoes too.

3. Turmeric drinks. Fresh turmeric is a hot new produce item. Valued in Asia for its health benefits, it's the base of Temple Turmeric's line of healthful beverages.

The line includes "super lights" that contain just 40 calories per bottle in flavors such as hibiscus berry-ade, lemon ginger-ade and strawerry lemon-ade. There are also super blends, which are drinkable meals; elixirs and super tonics, all made with fresh Hawaiian Oana turmeric.

To show off its beverages, Temple Turmeric set up a tropical pavilion where Expo goers could escape from the bustle of the show. A stone goddess held the treasured root.

4. Korean gochujang is one of the hottest condiments on the market. Chung Jung One presented squeezable bottles in three flavors--regular, miso and spicy ketchup sauce. Once you taste the ketchup version--gochujang blended with sweet and tangy tomato sauce--you might not want to use that other stuff on your burgers again.

5. Pho concentrates. Pho, the Vietnamese soup, gets its character from long simmered meaty broth. If you don't have the time or expertise to make this super rich broth at home, you can use Savory Choice liquid pho broth concentrates.

These come in three flavors--beef, chicken and veggie. Each packet contains enough concentrate for 2 cups of broth to which you add meat and/or vegetables and cooked rice noodles. You won't find faster pho than this.

6. American-made ghee. Tava ghee, which debuted at last year's Expo, has rebranded itself as 4th & Heart (heart is the 4th chakra) and repackaged all its products. I loved 4th & Heart's new California garlic ghee, which is light enough to slather onto bread without reeking offensively. The other newbie is white truffle ghee, for a quick touch of elegance.

The big selling point is, ghee is so easy to use. It can be stored at room temperature and is spreadable when you need it, unlike butter, which has to be softened.

4th & Heart ghees are made with premium butter, from which the solids have been removed, ending up with a product that is, surprisingly, lactose- and dairy-free. Raquel Tavares Gunsagar (above) founded the company, which is located in downtown Los Angeles.

7. Holy basil honey. Based in northern India, Sanjeevani Organics produces more than 100 organic food products. On display at its space in the India Pavilion were ghee from the company's own dairy, packets of fenugreek and mustard seeds and gorgeous honeys, including one flavored with holy basil (above).

Also known as tulsi, holy basil is revered in India as a sacred plant, so a spoonful of this every day should be good for your soul, as well as for your body. Another honey in the line is flavored with mint.

8. Saffron spray. If you've admired the way Indian biryani rice is splashed with gold, there's an easy way to accomplish this. Instead of heating saffron threads in liquid and sprinkling this onto rice, you simply spray it on from a bottle. The spray bottle is new from Sadaf, which distributes a wide range of Mediterranean and Middle Eastern products.

9. Naan chips. Chips were big at Expo, most of them made from tortillas. But these are based on Indian naan breads. They're from the Maya Kaimal line of Indian products, which includes refrigerated and shelf stable sauces such as tikka masala, vindaloo, korma and Madras curry. Hot dishes served at the booth were butter chicken, lamb vindaloo, dal makhani and chana masala.

Maya Kaimal herself (above) appeared at the booth. She's the author of two cookbooks: "Curried Favors: Family Recipes from South India"  and "Savoring the Spice Coast of India," which is about the food of Kerala. 

10. Tortilla chips and tortillas. How could anyone resist sweet cinnamon tortilla chips? Reminiscent of buñuelos, they're part of the Los Cantores line of chips produced by Mexican Corn Products of Ottawa, Canada. Try them with ice cream or cafe de olla. 

Other chips in the line are chipotle, jalapeño, lime, blue corn, ancient grains and a basic plain chip. The tortillas are made with white corn flour from the United States, and they're not any less Mexican because they're made in Canada. Principles in the company are from Tamazula in the state of Jalisco.

Margarita's Tortilla Factory, from Manchaca, Texas showed corn and flour tortillas (above). The diverse line includes flour tortillas flavored with spinach and onion, with southwestern seasonings or with jalapeños. In addition to white or whole wheat flour tortillas, the company offers spelt flour tortillas and stone-ground corn tortillas.

These are made without preservatives, unlike the mass market American corn tortillas that have been sitting on my kitchen counter for eight months, without drying out or showing a trace of mold. 

That product is pretty scary, but Margarita's tortillas are topnotch. The corn tortillas are non-GMO, and the flour tortillas are organic.

Okra Winds up in the Produce Top 10

Okra is a perfect 10. Really.

That's where it wound up in a survey of the top 10 fruits and vegetables conducted by the specialty produce industry.

It's "a surprise in my perspective," said Robert Schueller, of the largest specialty distributor, Melissa's Produce.

Basic to Indian cuisine and southern gumbo, okra is actually not a vegetable. "Botanically, it's a flower," Schueller said. "Seeds put it in the fruit category."

So learn to cook with it, because okra is now available year round, grown domestically and internationally. That in the container above is from Honduras.

The chief challenge is to counteract its notorious sliminess. Indian cooking teacher and author Julie Sahni does this by frying the okra pods whole (slicing makes sliminess more likely).

In a recipe for braised okra with tomatoes, onions and spices (in the photo at the top), she places the pods in a single layer in hot oil, fries them without stirring for a minute, then continues to fry them, stirring occasionally, until lightly browned.

Next, she cooks them in a mixture of well-fried onions, garlic, ginger, tomatoes and spices until tender. This is a northern Indian dish, common in Indian restaurants. The recipe is in her book, "Classic Indian Vegetarian and Grain Cooking" (William Morrow, 1985).

In the photo, Sahni's okra is paired with rice colored by the No. 3 winner in the produce survey, fresh turmeric root (above). Turmeric becoming this popular is even more surprising than okra's win. "The smoothie culture has gotten onto this," Schueller explained.

Primarily used in Asian cuisines, fresh turmeric can also be added to soups and stews as well as smoothies and herbal teas.

Only a couple of slices will provide a lot of color. The advantage of fresh over dried is that fresh turmeric does not give off the powdery, dusty aroma and flavor that can result from an overdose of ground dried turmeric. Tasted raw, it's a little like ginger root but not so pungent. 

The rice in the photo was cooked with three thin slices of turmeric root, then seasoned according to a technique used at Agra Cafe in Silver Lake. There, cumin seeds are fried until browned, then stirred gently into the cooked rice.  If you do this, use ghee or oil. Butter will burn. 

Fresh turmeric is perishable and will mold quickly. It's best to freeze it, then use as needed.

The other winners in the produce survey were chestnuts (9); Hatch chiles (8); dragon fruit (7); tree-ripened mangoes (6); Brussels sprouts (5); passion fruit (4), and Persian cucumbers (2).

The first place went to young coconuts (above). This reflects how popular coconut water has become. Canned or packaged coconut water ranges in flavor from nasty to fairly good. None can compare, however, to the water from a fresh sweet young coconut. Another advantage makes it a worthy winner. After sipping the water, you can scoop out and eat the tender flesh.  

California Olive Oil--A Record Crop

If you love good olive oil, it's time to celebrate. The 2015 California crop is a record-breaking 4 million gallons, a big increase over last year's 2.4 million gallons.

And it's coming from a rapidly growing number of olive oil producers. In 1997, there were just 17 in California. Now there are 400, said Patricia Darragh, executive director of the California Olive Oil Council. 

Speaking at a 2015 new oil release lunch at A.O.C. Restaurant, Darragh said olive oil production stretches from the Inland Empire to the upper Sacramento Valley, with the largest number of producers in San Luis Obispo County.

Eight producers provided their brand new extra virgin olive oils for tasting at the lunch and for chef/owner Suzanne Goin (above) to use in preparing the lunch.

"I am olive oil's No. 1 fan, an olive oil junky," said Goin as she ran through how she matched the oils with food.

Enzo Olive Oil's "Delicate" oil is "really buttery and reminded me of avocado," she said, perfect for a market lettuce salad with basil green goddess dressing, avocado and cherry tomatoes (above). Enzo is a fifth-generation farm in the Central Valley. Its Delicate oil is organic.  

The oil Goin chose for a plate of autumn vegetables with muhammara and chickpea puree, burrata and pomegranate (above) was Séka Hills Premium Arbequina Olio Nuovo. This oil is "super delicious, complex and developed," Goin said. These qualities and the "brightness of being new" lifted up the veggies and brought the plate together, she said.

Séka Hills is an estate-grown oil produced by the Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation in the Capay Valley in northern California.

Rio Bravo Ranch's Coratina tasted of green olives to Goin, and she used it to season grilled swordfish with greens from Windrose Farm, curried cauliflower and a tomato, green olive and lemon salsa (above). Located in Bakersfield, Rio Bravo Ranch is in its second year of production.

Another boutique producer, Grumpy Goats Farm, provided spicy, peppery Picual oil that inspired Goin to think of Spanish flavors for grilled hanger steak with arugula, romesco and fried potatoes (above).

Grumpy Goats is a 20-acre farm just east of Napa. Eight acres are planted to olives. One-third is Picual, the rest Cortina. The Picual oil is organic.

A kabocha squash gratin flavored with Kiler Ridge Olive Farm's blend of Tuscan varietals came with the steak (above). This oil has a "lot of bitterness on the finish," Goin said, adding "I always say bitterness in a good way." She employed the sweetness of kabocha squash to contrast with the bitterness. A small family-owned and operated farm, Kiler Ridge is in Paso Robles. 

Olive oil cake sounds heavy and greasy. Goin's was anything but. This lovely light cake (above) came with candied tangerines, Santa Barbara pistachios and whipped cream. The oil Goin used was California Olive Ranch's Arbequina, which is the A.O.C. house olive oil.

A large producer, California Olive Ranch gets oils from growers throughout the Sacramento Valley. The oil poured for the tasting before the lunch was the Limited Reserve blend of Arbequina and Koroneiki oils.

Two additional oils were set out for tasting. December's New Oil from Katz Farm blends Tuscan varietals and is organic. This artisan producer is in the Suisun Valley in Solano County, east of Napa.

The other was Green Valley Olive's single estate oil from the Sacramento Valley, made from a field blend of four olive varieties--Frantoio, Leccino, Maurino and Pedolino cultivars (above). 

You'll find oils such as these in specialty stores.They may seem expensive compared to  cheaper versions in supermarkets. However, the cheaper brands may blend oils that are not necessarily extra virgin, using the name because it has high selling power. They can do this because the United States has not set standards for extra virgin olive oil. 

High quality oils usually have a harvest or milling date as well as a best use date.  Check to see if the harvest date is within 12 months, and use the oil within 18 months. 

To guarantee quality, the California Olive Oil Council has established a strict rating program for extra virgin olive oil. Member producers who qualify are entitled to use the logo above. Look for that, and you'll know you're getting the real thing.  

Micro Purslane Tops New Fall Produce

Big news in produce! Just out this week are purslane micro greens. This may not sound startling, but it marks an attempt to provide micro greens for the everyday cook, not just for high-end chefs.

Behind this is Melissa's Produce, which enlisted a grower in San Diego to provide the feathery sprouts. The goal was "to see if the micro green thing would happen at retail level," said Robert Schueller, Melissa's public relations director. Until now, home cooks have been largely left out, because 99.9% of the tiny greens go into food service, he said.

Micro purslane comes in an 8-ounce package (above), providing plenty to use as salad greens, add to sandwiches, garnish plates and even to sauté with olive oil, salt and pepper as the package suggests. Rather than tasteless immature greens, they have a pleasant, light, peppery flavor. 

POTATOES

Also just out are packaged roasted Dutch yellow potatoes, ready to eliminate one cooking job at Thanksgiving. If you're planning to serve yams instead, forget it. The true yam is a "third world type of staple food," Schueller said, thick-skinned, not sweet and white/beige in color. The "yam" beloved in the American South is, botanically, a sweet potato.

The usual hefty red skinned sweets will be in markets, but for a change try baby garnet "yams," which you can roast, grill or boil. They're easy to handle and look good on a plate. 

BRUSSELS SPROUTS

Rather than serving peas for Thanksgiving, you might switch to Brussels sprouts, Schueller suggested. Fresh peas may be traditional, but at this time of year they're imported, which drives up the price. 

The freshest way to get Brussels sprouts is on the stalk. The sprouts are still feeding from the stalk, which is not edible, but don't feel guilty about cutting them off and storing them. Or, if you want to take it easy, buy pre-roasted sprouts. 

ONIONS

Onions are plentiful and in good variety. Instead of presenting bland white creamed onions at Thanksgiving, mingle red, white and gold pearl onions to make the dish more interesting (above). These are available in a handy three-pack, visible at the back of the Brussels sprouts photo.

TOMATOES

Forget the fresh ones at this time of year, because they are imported and picked too early. Use only heirlooms, said Tom Fraker, Melissa's corporate chef. Or else use canned, because they are vine-ripened.

SQUASH

Fraker made a delicious butternut squash bisque (recipe and photo below) for the produce presentation, which took place at Melissa's corporate headquarters in Vernon.

You could also make the soup with butterkin squash (at the back above), a butternut hybrid that is rounder and more smoothly shaped rather than swelling to a globe at the end.

Need pumpkins for pie? If you're buying them canned, they're pumpkin in name only. "Canned pumpkin is basically butternut squash," Schueller said.

If you think colorful fall squash would make nice decorations, fine. But cook them as soon as possible. If allowed to stand too long, they'll still look pretty, but inside, they'll be dehydrated. 

PERSIMMONS

No longer are there just two types of persimmons, hachiyas and fuyus. The yellow-skinned cinnamon persimmon (at the top in the photo) is the one to look for this fall, because it's sweeter than the others. However, the crop is small, so distribution will be limited.  

APPLES

The Ambrosia apple, red-skinned and sweet, combines the flavor characteristics of several apples. Its most notable feature is that it doesn't oxidize when cut. This means you can prepare a holiday fruit plate in advance and not worry about the apples turning brown.

The green apple in the photo is the Green Dragon, which is sweet, not tart. It came on the market about four seasons ago.

Miniature organic Crimson Gold apples, in sacks at the right, are not just cute. They're pleasingly tart-sweet and crisp. Chef Fraker turned them into caramel apples, rolling some in toasted coconut for a mini treat that can be demolished in a couple of mouthfuls.

QUINCE

The quince is for cooking only. Fraker made a sweet quince butter that he spread on sliced cinnamon persimmons and sprinkled with pomegranate arils (above). Try this as a turkey garnish or simple dessert. 

DRAGON FRUIT

Exotic fruits that will add interest to holiday tables include dragon fruit, grown domestically in Fallbrook and Florida and imported from Vietnam. In season now, dragon fruit comes in three shades--white, pink and magenta. The flesh is sprinkled with tiny black seeds. 

PASSION FRUIT

Passion fruit used to be available only during spring and summer, imported from New Zealand. Now there's a California crop for this time of year. Passion fruits are ready to use when the shells wrinkle. Inside is soft yellow pulp surrounding dark seeds.  Chef Fraker makes a passion fruit sauce for crepes, straining out the seeds, and suggests passion fruit toppings for ice cream and Greek yogurt.

GRAPES

There couldn't be a better grape for the holiday season than Christmas Crunch. This large, red, late season grape comes from California's Central Valley. As crunchy as the name, it's ideal for a holiday fruit plate (above), combined with sliced persimmons, pineapple, dragon fruit and anything else that strikes your mood. 

Here is Chef Fraker's squash soup, which you can decorate with either squash flowers or pomegranate arils. If you want to make it vegetarian, substitute vegetable stock for the chicken broth. 

CREAMY ROASTED BUTTERNUT SQUASH BISQUE
By Chef Tom Fraker

1 butternut squash, about 2 pounds
Extra virgin olive oil
Salt, pepper
1 (2 1/2-inch) Maui onion, chopped
1 organic shallot, chopped
2 organic garlic cloves, roasted and chopped
1 (14 1/2-ounce) can diced tomatoes, drained
4 tablespoons dry sherry
2 1/2 cups chicken broth, plus more for thinning if needed
Pomegranate seeds or squash blossoms for garnish

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees.

 

Cut the squash in half lengthwise and scoop out the seeds. Brush with olive oil and  season with salt and pepper.

 

Place in the oven until browned and fork tender. When finished, scoop out the flesh and discard the shell.

 

Heat 1 tablespoon olive oil in a heavy large saucepan over medium-high heat. Add the onion and shallot and sauté until translucent, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic and sauté until fragrant, about 10 seconds.

 

Add the tomatoes and sherry. Boil until almost al the liquid evaporates. Add the squash and stir in 2 1/2 cups chicken broth.

 

Bring to a boil. Reduce heat, cover and simmer to heat through and incorporate the flavors, stirring occasionally, about 15 minutes.

 

Pureé the soup with a hand blender until very smooth, being careful not to splash, as the soup will be very hot. If too thick, add additional chicken broth.

 

If desired, add pico de gallo (fresh shopped salsa) or other salsa to give a touch of heat. Garnish with pomegranate arils or squash flowers.

 

Makes 4 to 6 servings.

 

Summer Fruit, with Some Surprises

There's nothing conventional about this strawberry shortcake. 

First, the base isn't a biscuit or cake. It's half of a Mexican concha, the sweet bread decorated to look like a shell. 

The berries aren't your usual supermarket berries either. They're Harry's Berries, the super sweet strawberries from Oxnard that I see at the Hollywood Farmers' Market or that upscale markets get from Melissa's Produce. 

Harry's Berries are so sweet (and expensive) that it seemed ridiculous to sprinkle them with sugar, but I did this to draw out the juices so they could moisten the lightly toasted concha.

The berries came from a summer fruit presentation at Melissa's headquarters in Vernon. I drove from there to La Mascota on Whittier Boulevard to get the conchas. 

Feast your eyes on the berries again. I can't believe how sweet they are compared to what I usually get in the market. 

The presentation gave me the only opportunity I have ever had to taste a peach that is even rarer than the strawberries. It was an organic Masumoto Flavor Crest peach. These would cost $3 to $4 each, according to Robert Schueller of Melissa's.  Look for them in markets such as Gelson's and Bristol Farms. 

Such a peach demands worshipful eating, but Melissa's chef Tom Fraker gilded the lily just as I did with the strawberries. Above are his brûléed Masumoto peach wedges. 

Not so rare but equally surprising was tasting a fresh sugar plum (above). I know these as Italian prune plums, but it seems prunes have a negative connotation, and this makes sugar plum a better marketing title.

I buy prune plums in late August and September, because they are superb in pies and fruit crisps. I never tasted them raw because I thought the yellow flesh would be sour and inedible.  I won't make that mistake again, because fresh raw prune (sugar) plums are as luscious as any plum. 

I loved traveling in Thailand, where I could taste exotic fresh fruits such as rambutans (above), mangosteens and durian. It was a shock to come across a vendor selling rambutans in a small town in the south of Mexico and to learn that Melissa's gets them from Guatemala. At least that saves me the long flight across the Pacific. I can go on exotic fruit safaris right at home.  

And what were pumpkins doing at Melissa's in the summer? Oh, not pumpkins. They're called squash at this time of year. These are FairyTale squash, an apt name because they'll turn into  FairyTale pumpkins when it gets closer to Halloween.

This is smart marketing. In the summer no one thinks about pumpkins. In the fall everyone thinks about pumpkin pie and Jack O'Lanterns. Fittingly for this Cinderella-like transition, they're also known as Cinderella pumpkins.

Great Produce for Healthy Cooking

Look at this gorgeous display of produce, but look even more closely at what's written below it--"Cook Well, Eat Well - Every Day."

This is the new fitness mantra, presented here by Melissa's at the Produce Marketing Association's Fresh Summit. The giant produce exhibition was held over the weekend at the Anaheim Convention Center.

If you looked at Time magazine's recent cover story on home cooking, you read the same thing from cookbook author and food columnist Mark Bittman, who had still more to say about home cooking in the New York Times Magazine.

And why would you not want to cook when you can work with gorgeous produce such as this? Processed junk food looks ugly compared to cute little romanesco, the knobby green things in another Melissa's display at the expo.

Variety? It's endless, with produce we've never seen before streaming into our markets. Coming soon is butterkin squash (above), a combination of pumpkin and butternut squash. 

How naughty that cauliflower gets shorn of its beautiful leaves before we buy it.  Thrifty cooks in other countries, India among them, know that the leaves are excellent for cooking. Here is how cauliflower ought to look.

Wouldn't it be fun to confuse your friends with these tiny golden balls? They look like cherry tomatoes, but they're actually a fruit--golden berries from Colombia, also known as uchuva, Cape gooseberry and physalis peruviana. In the photo they're paired with a smoothie that blends the berries with pineapple, mint and lime. 

Here are even tinier berries. They're fresh goji berries from Shanley Farms. Grown east of Visalia, they'll be in markets next spring. 

For exotic fruits, a good stop was Thailand's booth, where mangosteens and fresh longans were set out for tasting.  Dragon fruit (the cerise fruit in the basket)  is now so common, it's perhaps no longer exotic.

Why make a fuss about cooking when it's so easy? Chef Daniele Palanca at the Mucci Farms booth put this together while I watched. The yellow bell pepper strips are marinated with raspberry vinegar, lemon-flavored olive oil, fried shallots (ready made, from an Asian market), black sesame seeds and sea salt. They were delicious. 

More complicated was albacore tiradito (above) prepared by Chef Ricardo Zarate for Peru's tasting bar. It has an aji amarillo and mango sauce, a rocoto huacatay dressing and micro greens for decoration. The little dots are crispy quinoa.  The Peruvian chile aji amarillo is only available frozen here, but mangoes are easy to get, and there were lots of them at the expo. 

Expo exhibits presented plenty of everyday fruit too, like these sacks of apples.

After seven hours of touring, all I wanted was a cup of coffee, which the expo provided, and a cookie, which I got from a booth promoting Missouri black walnuts. The cookies were really good, and you can bake them yourself. The recipe is here, along with information on mail-ordering black walnuts if you can't find them in your markets.

Natural Products Expo Gets The Pope

The Natural Products Expo West in Anaheim had a really special guest--Pope Francis. You can see him mingling with the crowd (above).

This was, of course, a cardboard cut-out, but so real that people stopped, surprised to see him there. The Pope was holding a yerba mate gourd with bombilla (straw). This was not out of the ordinary, because Pope Francis is from Buenos Aires, where sipping mate is a way of life.

His appearance was arranged by Guyaki Yerba Mate, which poured hot and cold mate drinks from a colorful stand (above). Too bad the Pope couldn't taste the mate latte. It was great.

The three-day trade show at the Anaheim Convention Center had not only food but health and beauty products, supplements, cleaning supplies, pet-care items and more. 

Scoping out interesting products was a challenge, because there was no order to the displays. It was necessary to scout every aisle, a challenge at what may be the world's largest trade show.

The buzzwords for food were gluten-free, organic, vegan, non-GMO, artificial hormone-free, all natural, dairy-free, no-soy, vegetarian and vegan. Attendees were besieged with gluten-free foods. Even a Bigelow teabag was labeled "tea is a gluten free beverage." That's how silly this fad has become.

"Healthy" ingredients included quinoa, which was at its most tempting in a quinoa salad (above) prepared for Peru's display by the Peruvian restaurant Mo-Chica. In addition to red, black and white quinoa, the display included quinoa flakes to eat like cereal.

Energy bars and chocolates contained chia seeds, hemp seeds and buckwheat groats. The most unusual were Chapul's cricket energy bars (above), made with cricket flour. The flavors were peanut butter and chocolate, dark chocolate with coffee and cayenne and a Thai bar with coconut, ginger and lime. According to Chapul, crickets contain twice as much protein as beef and 15% more iron than spinach. 

Ethnic foods represented India, Afghanistan, Korea, Mexico, the Middle East, Africa, Japan, the Philippines and more. Curries by Nature (above) is a new line of Indian sauces from Texas, introduced last fall. Each jar holds enough for 1 1/2 pounds of meat.

IndianLife, from Canada, showed masala and samosa chips (above). Other Indian style products in the photo include Ziggy Marley's Coco'Mon curry-flavored cold-pressed coconut oil and meat-free "bouillon" cubes flavored with red or yellow curry from Edward & Sons Trading Co. They're made in Switzerland. 

Not shown is That Indian Drink's chef-crafted lassi, the most opulent of which was flavored with mangoes from India and rosewater. 

 Mexico displayed natural vanilla, dried coconut and Dulsweet's organic agave syrup (above) in two styles, dark and light. Japanese miso soup mix was suggested as an ingredient for dips, salad dressings and sauces, an attempt to move a traditional product into fusion fields. Mishima Foods exhibited gluten-free crumbs made from brown rice and from rice, tapioca and salt, handy for breading instead of flour.

For health drinks, there were Numi Organic Tea's chocolate rooibus, Mamma Chia's Chia Squeeze and Organic India's caffeine-free tulsi teas (above)--tulsi is India's holy basil. Growing Naturals exhibited chocolate-flavored rice protein powder to shake with water or non-dairy milk for a dairy-free drink. 

The Expo offered something for everyone. The biggest hit in my household was Feline Caviar holistic grain-free range chicken, moist food with sweet potato and spinach but none of the grains that bulk up so much cat food. This premium treat made my cats forget how angry they were because Mom came home so late from the show that they missed their dinner.