fruit notes
I am so excited for cherimoya season! This piece of fruit is just incredible. This week, Condor Ridge harvested both Booth and Dr. White varieties of cherimoya. It needs to sit on the counter for a few days, but when ripe, it will have a slight give like a ripe avocado, and its green skin will begin to show swipes of brown. The flesh will transform into something custardy with tropical notes of banana, guava, piloncillo, and pineapple. (You’ll want to avoid the large black seeds sprinkled throughout.) Cherimoya fruit is native to the steep, mountainous highlands of Ecuador and Peru. Closer to home, the subtropical oasis of Condor Ridge Ranch in Goleta is the perfect environment for the plant to thrive. The steep leeward slopes of the farm protect the fruit from the direct ocean elements, but its location on the coast means mild temperatures. These cooler winter months benefit the cherimoya trees with a bit of chill.
The fruit’s flavor is really just wild, but its journey from flower to fruit is something else. The petals of the cherimoya flower resemble the leaves of a succulent, thick and fleshy. In the Andes, a tiny beetle navigates the narrow spaces between these petals to pollinate the flowers. In California, neither native pollinators nor the European honey bee can reliably fit between the chubby petals. So to ensure effective pollination and good-sized fruit, the crew at Condor Ridgemust hand-pollinate the flowers. This means traversing the steep orchard in the afternoon, swiping the flowers with a paintbrush to collect the pollen. Returning the next morning, when the flower has transformed to its female state, they transfer the pollen with a little swish. This is art! Store on your counter for a few days until ripe. Once it’s ready, we recommend popping it in the fridge to chill for a bit for a cold, custardy ice cream experience! Grown organically by Condor Ridge Ranch in Goleta.
Just when I start to talk about how the remaining Cara Cara oranges in California have moved down south at this point into the season, we get a call about some more delicious fruit grown in Winters! We know The Cloverleaf Farm for their delicious peaches, nectarines, apricots, and figs so we don’t normally expect to hear from them until May or June. But it was such a welcome surprise! On their eight acres of organic fruit orchards, they grow some of the tastiest fruit out there, so I was pretty excited to hear about their Cara Caras. They have a couple of trees (literally, two) of several citrus varieties, fully loaded with fruit right now. In the coming weeks, we’ll be featuring even more of their delicious citrus: grapefruit, blood oranges, mandarins, and Navels. The sweetest thing about these oranges, aside from the flavor being top-notch, is that Andrew and Eric, of neighboring farm Farmboy Organics, helped with the harvest. I'm often reminded that small-scale farming is deeply rooted in community and often takes a village. Store these on your counter. Grown organically by The Cloverleaf Farm in Winters.
Ice Cream Beans! Inside the (inedible) green pod is white flesh – like vanilla-flavored cotton candy. The white fleshy “fruit” surrounds a big black bean that is edible when cooked but can otherwise be treated like a seed (read: don’t eat them raw!) Eschewing its catchy common name, farmer Jay Ruskey of Condor Ridge Ranch refers to it as “Inga”, shorthand for its Latin name, Inga edulis. Inga is commonly planted alongside coffee trees to provide shade and wind protection, and to help fix nitrogen in the soil. It’s extremely fast-growing and even though it’s a legume like beans and favas, it grows like a tree! Jay, along with other small coffee farmers, is growing Inga symbiotically with their coffee plants in Southern California. Inga can be found growing in the wild and in agroforestry systems throughout Central and South America, but it isn’t exported due to its short shelf-life, perishability, and unfamiliarity in the market. Store in the fridge and it’ll be good for 5-7 days – just in time to get more! Grown organically by Condor Ridge Ranch in Goleta.
In past seasons, the segue from Satsuma mandarin season to Tango mandarin season has been seamless. This year, Satsumas ended early on account of the late December rains and Gold Nugget mandarins beat the Tangos to the party! At least at Spreadwing Farm, the Gold Nuggets were sweet and ready before the Tango mandarins this year. But the Tangos are here, and they are very much ready. Tangos have a bright vermillion-orange color, are seedless, and burst with that quintessential sweet-tang flavor! If Tangos remind you of Cuties®, it’s because Tangos are one of the three varieties marketed under that label. Lucky for us, we found a grower who shares our enthusiasm for Tangos and our high quality standards (no offense to the good people of Cutie Corp). It’s decisively one of farmer Cathy Suematsu’s top three fave mandarin varieties, so she planted 36 trees in their small orchard. That’s quite the distinction in our book! Keep these on your counter. Grown organically by Spreadwing Farm in Rumsey.
The first harvests of California Hass avocados are in and they’re from Garcia Organic Farm! I’m so hyped for CA avo season!! Across their ten acres of avocados, Juan Garcia has planted mostly Hass, with a few more fun varieties in the mix too. (They may make an appearance in weeks to come.) An avocado doesn’t begin ripening until it’s been picked, so growers (and the CA Avocado Commission) determine readiness by measuring the oil content of the fruit. Think of oil content like the avocado’s potential for creaminess. The fruit may not be soft yet, but it's an indicator of just how luscious it will be down the road. Oil content varies by variety (Hass has one of highest) and generally increases the longer the fruit is on the tree. Though California avocados can be harvested now, the big commercial packers and growers are finishing up with fruit from Mexico’s winter season which is why you’d see both available at the grocery stores. It’s early season, but we can vouch that Garcia’s Hass avos are tasty and creamy right now. Store on the counter until it has a little give. Grown organically by Garcia Organic Farm in Fallbrook.
As the name suggests, these bell-shaped mandarinquats are the product of a happy marriage between a mandarin orange and a kumquat. They’re larger than the more common kumquats you might be used to, like Nagami or Meiwa. You can eat them the same way, peel and all, though the acidity lends itself to use in savory cooking. The skin is sweet and entirely edible; the flesh is juicy, floral, and bracingly tart. On our visit to the farm a couple of weeks ago, farmer Juan Garcia tore a ripe avocado clean in half – pro-farmer move – creating two cups of creamy avocado. He squeezed some mandarinquat juice across the top for acidity, and left us to eat it like an Otter Pop. So good! Store these on your counter. Grown organically by Garcia Organic Farm.
Blink and you may miss the small crop of Rio Red grapefruit from Cathy and Michael of Spreadwing Farm. They have only ten Rio Red trees on the farm! For me, January is when white grapefruit varieties get to shine, like Oro Blanco and Melogold. February and onward into Spring is all about red grapefruit. These Rio Reds have classic grapefruit traits: sweet and floral with undertones of acid and a slight bitterness. The extended hang brings the sugars and helps achieve the balance that’s so important in a delicious, juicy, red grapefruit. They’ll just keep getting better, too! Store on the counter. Grown organically by Spreadwing Farm in Rumsey.
