- Author: Penny Leff
We live in an orchard. It’s pretty much like the California dream that Sunkist and the railroads promised to people back East and to dust bowl refugees many years ago – an orange tree in your own backyard! For many of us in the Sacramento region, the dream came true.
Right now the citrus is ripe. Once you start looking, you see it everywhere – bright navel oranges, juicy grapefruit hanging in clusters, glistening lemons and sweet tangerines – some behind fences and some right out front by the street.
Often the trees are big and old, planted long ago. Much of this urban and suburban fruit doesn’t get harvested; people are too busy, the trees get too tall, or there’s just too much fruit to handle at one time. Meanwhile...
- Author: Pam Devine
When my daughter was a young swimmer, she wanted to collect a ribbon of every color. Picking up on this, my husband and I encouraged her to eat many colored fruits and vegetables as a game. Red strawberries, green kiwis, and hmmm, what kind of fruit is white? Bananas! Then we have green cucumbers, red peppers, purple eggplant. You get the picture.
We all know we need to eat more fruits and vegetables, so why not make it a game? If you had an orange with your cereal for breakfast, have a spinach salad with red onions, mushrooms and sprinkle of bacon for lunch and blueberries on yogurt for your afternoon snack. Let’s see, that covers orange, green, red, white and blue. I guess we’re having a spaghetti dinner! It’s interesting...
- Author: Jim Coats
On a wet and gloomy winter afternoon, there are few sights more cheering to my eyes than a persimmon tree loaded with its brilliant fruit, hanging from dark boughs like a mass of orange lanterns. But if you come across this bright spectacle on a winter's walk, don't rush to take a bite of that tempting fruit unless you're sure you know what's what.
See, there are persimmons, and then there are persimmons.
The type of persimmon that you can eat right off the tree is the Fuyu variety (left), a firm-fleshed, yellow- to orange-skinned fruit that is flat on the bottom and wider than it is tall—sometimes twice as wide. You can eat the fresh, sweet fruit like an apple or cut up in salads or you can dry it on...
- Author: Alberto Hauffen
Shopping outdoors and having the chance to freely choose, ask questions, taste, and perhaps haggle a little are some of the reasons for immigrants from Latin America and elsewhere to find farmers markets particularly appealing. Childhood memories of going to open-air markets with their families are probably another big reason for them, but also for many older U.S. born consumers who are becoming regular customers.
Fortunately, as more non-Latinos and non-immigrants discover or re-discover the advantages of buying fresh produce grown by small farmers, we all will have more opportunities to enjoy getting our favorite fruits and vegetables "like we used to."
For my wife, Sylvia, and I is a lot more fun to buy our produce at...
- Author: Janet L. White
Dipping fresh bread into olive oil has become a popular alternative to coating it with butter. Olive oil consists of 85 percent unsaturated fats, and when substituted for saturated fat in the diet can promote ”good” cholesterol (high density lipoprotein or HDL), reducing risk of coronary artery disease.
Some olive oils are more beneficial than others. "Extra virgin" olive oil (EVOO), for instance, is extracted from the olive fruit without using heat or chemical solvents. This mechanical process retains the highest amount of natural “phenolic compounds” — antioxidants and anti-inflammatory agents. Such compounds both retard oxidation in the olive oil (keeping it fresh and preventing rancidity)...