fruit notes

This week, there’s a lot of “first of the season” fruit! Excitement is in the air when new varieties are ripening up each week. For the most part, we don’t bring in fruit until we think it’s really, really good. But from a past-life in Big (little) Produce, chasing the rush of bringing in the “first” of something is in my DNA and sometimes I just can’t help it. Lucky for you and for us, this means we’re able to eat a piece of fruit from the same farm’s successive harvests throughout the season, tasting the progression of the fruit. This is not a common experience. For me, it helps tease out nuances in how the flavor evolves, and tbh it deepens my appreciation of the fruit! So here are the hot-takes on the new fruit this week.

The closer you get to farming, the more it looks like a monumental struggle. Nature has a way of humbling you. It takes steel nerves and wild patience to hold off harvesting another couple days, waiting out the crest of flavor, not knowing what nature might have in store that could jeopardize a year of work. But John Lagier carries himself with a supernatural calm, this poise. Whether it’s his four-and-a-half decades farming or his familial roots on the farm in Escalon, he knows his crops so well. From the outside, it looks like he’s farming in a flow state. He doesn’t dare to harvest something until it’s really ready. If you remember back in August, we kept waiting for the arrival of Bronx grapes, which meant waiting for John to decide they were ready to harvest. (Pushing ripeness in a thin-skinned grape, tempting the disastrous first rains of the season, poise.) So John has said his Page mandarins are ready and they’re here! If you ask us what our favorite fruit of the winter season is, more often than not we’d say Page mandarins. And John grows the best version of these. The Page is a cross between a clementine and a Minneola tangelo, which – no offense to either – doesn’t really explain its knock-your-socks-off flavor! It’s difficult to peel and the segments cling tightly together, but the flavor and texture are 100% worth the hassle. I recommend quartering the mandarins and peeling from there. Store on the counter. Grown organically by Lagier Ranches in Escalon.

Melogold white grapefruit is a cousin of sorts to the Oro Blanco grapefruit. Both have that classic white grapefruit floral sweetness and a mellow bitterness balancing the acidity. The Oro Blanco is better-known, a bit less bitter, and a touch sweeter, hanging on the tree from January to March. But Melogolds are the perfect opening act. They are in the same vein of sweet and mellowly bitter white grapefruit, but they ripen up a bit earlier. For those yearning for white grapefruit in December (me me me!!) the Melogold is your friend. Early fruit has more acid than sugar but they’ll continue to get sweeter throughout the season. Store on the counter. Grown organically by Murray Family Farm in Bakersfield.

Cara Cara oranges – and Navels too – are really a post-Christmas thing, when they’re plentiful and flavor begins to peak. But Murray Family Farm always has the first to ripen Cara Cara oranges and we can’t wait. Murray’s orchard is near Bakersfield and the earliest California oranges tend to come out of this area. This week, the Cara Cara oranges are smaller in size and the acidity is slightly dominant over the sugars. They still hit the spot – absence makes the heart grow fonder, I guess! With cooler nights in the forecast, dropping into the low 30s next week, the fruit will develop more sugars. Store on the counter. Grown organically by Murray Family Farm in Bakersfield.

Red kiwifruit is new in California, having just been introduced in the last couple of years. We don’t know any small farms growing red kiwis (holler if you do!) These are from Wild River Fruit, a 3rd generation grower and packer in Yuba County that’s introducing this variety to the commercial market here. I first had a sample of red kiwifruit shipped from Italy a few years ago and was amazed – it was sweet, subacid, and had flashy red flesh. The Wild River red kiwi is a different variety yet. They resemble a gold kiwi in flavor and texture, with some red streaks in the inner pericarp of the kiwi, the fleshy area near the seeds. The red kiwi is a natural mutation of gold kiwis discovered in China in the 1980s, so this flavor profile makes sense! The flavor is sweet, the texture is firmer, and there are slight raspberry and blackberry notes. Store them on the counter if you like them softer. Grown organically by Wild River Fruit in Marysville. 

Passion fruit in California has two seasons. The first begins in late August and runs through the fall. As the temps drop, the plants slow production for a few months before kicking back into gear as it warms in the spring. The rain in November and sustained cooler temps have really slowed down passion fruit harvests over the last couple of weeks. But we’re spoiled and we can’t IMAGINE citrus without a bit of passion fruit for the zingy tropical tastes! So Jay at Condor Ridge Ranch is kindly setting aside all that he can harvest for us. We’re lucky! Even in these lean times Jay’s fruit looks better than anything we see in markets. The passion fruit is fully-colored up, wrinkly, and ripe on the vines. The more wrinkly, the sweeter they are. Store them on the counter or the fridge. Grown organically by Condor Ridge Ranch in Goleta. 

We got back just in time last week to catch Terra Firma’s peak harvest of their Owari Satsuma mandarins. They grow one of our favorite versions of these! Packed with high acid and high sugars, their old orchard produces some of the tastiest Satsumas. Sadly, all good things come to an end and we just got news that this week was their last harvest. Luckily, many other farms are just starting up with Satsumas and we have many mandarin varieties ahead of us! Terra Firma will be tending to their orchards and keeping a close eye on their next variety, due in January, the fan club fave Tahoe Gold mandarin. Store these in the fridge or on the counter. Grown organically by Terra Firma Farms in Winters.

Stan Devoto’s Fuji apples are his last apple harvested and they are sugar-y sweet! By this point in the season, local California apples have wrapped up and most of what’s being offered in grocery stores is trucked down from the Pacific Northwest. Stan’s Fujis aren’t like the ones you’d find at the store, anyway. He pushes ripeness on the apples, evidenced by the golden hue across the skin. Stan planted these Fuji trees 35 years ago. Every year he tells me, “the Fujis are so good this year – I don’t normally really eat Fujis!” I still love to hear it. And I would agree, these are really good. Store them in the fridge. Grown organically by Devoto Orchards in Sebastopol.