fruit notes

I still remember the best-tasting peach I had ever eaten. I had just started working at the Ferry Plaza farmers market for Eatwell Farm. It was towards the end of the market day. Things had started to slow down but it wasn’t quite time to clean up yet. Lucky for me, I was working alongside Lorraine, one of the owners of Eatwell. She suggested I go over to get some peaches from Woodleaf Farm – they have the BEST peaches, she said. She handed me some cash and sent me on a mission. The tables were covered with big, beautiful peaches glowing in the afternoon sun.  The sign read “O’Henry peaches.” I grabbed some for Lorraine and a couple for myself. The details of my memory are fuzzy (like a peach hehe) but whatever happened sent me back the following week, urgently seeking more O’Henry peaches. Lucky for me, there was one last week in the season! Every year since, I’ve sought them out, cherishing that last taste of summer. I’ve had so many amazing and “best-tasting” peaches since then, but I think for a lot of us, a fruit that we decide to call our favorite comes from a similar memory. It’s the power of nostalgia and these sensory-rich experiences that shape our lives. For me, this was an early revelation about the importance of varietals that’s since become an obsession with seeking out fruit by variety. The O’Henry peach is forever etched into my mind as maybe the first best-tasting peach I had, so memorable that I now call it my favorite. Years later, I get to source O’Henry peaches from the same orchard, since handed down twice, and beginning this season, cared for by friends and a new generation of farmers. The peaches are all the more delicious for it. Store on the counter. Grown organically by Double Wild Farm in Oroville.

Imagine my delight when I learned there was a mango grown in California! It was my first season as a produce buyer and I was so stoked about these organic California Keitt mangoes. The Keitt is green-skinned and BIG, averaging about 1.5 pounds each. They have a sweet, nearly fiberless flesh and a small pit. Mangoes were first planted in the Coachella Valley in 1984 and a collective of growers now farm on a total of 250 acres. Corona-College Heights, a citrus packer in Riverside, markets the mangoes under the “Ava” label for the grower collective. (The label is named after one of the mango growers’ daughters.) These growers are the only ones producing at a commercial-scale in the state. In the years since, I’ve discovered newer, shinier (tree-ripened) mangoes – hello Wong Farms!! – but I still have a deep appreciation for these California-grown mangoes. They’re delicious! I’m grateful for the weeks in September and October when Keitts are in season. Keitt mangoes remain green when ripe so you can tell it’s ready when it yields to gentle pressure, like an avocado! These may need 2-4 days on the counter to become fully ripe. Grown organically by Corona-College Heights in Riverside County. 

At the beginning of this year, we visited farmer Jay Ruskey of Condor Ridge Ranch in Goleta, right before his Hass avocado season started in March. Jay grows around 5 acres of Hass avocados – considerably small-scale in the world of avocado groves. Despite their size, they’ve historically sent their entire crop, 850-pound bin by 850-pound bin, to a packing house down in Southern California. The crew can harvest the whole grove in a few sweeps, picking every size and quality together. The packing house does the sorting, sizing, washing, handling, and packing. The avocados are mixed with fruit from hundreds of other growers and labeled with a generic sticker. The price the packing house offers fluctuates throughout the season, dependent on supply from Mexico and bigger California growers. It’s a commodity price, absurd given the quality of Jay’s fruit. I decided that we’d start an avocado program this year with his Hass, selling the avocados under his farm name to the fruit fan club! We pay Jay a better price, sort and handle them ourselves, and cut a few middlemen out of the deal in the process. Here we are, with two or three weeks left in the avocado season and just a few hundred pounds left hanging on the trees. The hard working crew at Condor Ridge has picked avocados weekly for the last 6 months. They are harvested, sorted, sized, and packed by hand, with love and care by the small team. And as they’ve hung on the tree through the season, they’ve gotten even creamier. Enjoy the last of the September avocados. It’s going to be a long winter without them! Store them on the counter or in the fridge once they’ve reached your desired ripeness. Grown organically by Condor Ridge Ranch in Goleta. 

If weather permits, we have another few weeks of fig season left. Thea and Andres of Gauchito Hill Farm grow some of the best we’ve had. A few weeks ago, an unexpected storm came through, impacting many fig growers in Northern California. It did a number on the more delicate fig varieties. Luckily, we’re past that and the figs are tasting better than ever. As fig season winds down and volume starts to decline, we wanted to revisit a classic and a favorite: Black Mission figs. Most people are probably familiar with this variety since it’s the most commonly-grown type in California (introduced in 1769!). It has a beautiful dark skin with a berry-like flesh when harvested ripe. Store in the fridge. Grown organically by Gauchito Hill Farms in the Capay Valley.

We’re nearing the end of plum-pluot season and Black Kat pluots are one of Toby’s last stone fruit varieties. They’re a stunner, with a deeply dark-blue skin and light-yellow flesh. Black Kats can be enjoyed firm or left to soften on the counter a bit. This variety tends to get pretty big with an incredible shiny bloom on the skin! It’s a naturally occurring waxy coating that helps protect the fruit from moisture loss. Good to know the fruit doesn’t want to miss any of that sugary pluot juice, either! Store on the counter. Grown organically by Free Spirit Farm in Winters.

Encore appearances

A few weeks ago, we visited John and Casey in Escalon to see how they were coming along. We trekked out to the vineyard to taste and test the grapes. In addition to sensory evaluation – plain ol’ tasting, personal fave – measuring the grapes’ sugar levels helps give you a sense of how far out from harvest you are. John explained that you can typically expect the grapes to gain two degrees Brix – a measure of sugar concentration – each week. We picked a sample and crushed the berries, catching their juice in a paper cup. The digital refractometer wasn’t working, so John and I took turns with the analog tool, a device with a lens on one end and a glass plate that holds a drop of juice on the other. We looked like navigators gazing through a spyglass at the sugary horizon. Testing (and tasting) across multiple rows showed that the Bronx needed a couple more weeks to come into their own. Now they’re finally here, and they’re incredible. The thin skins are painted with pale greens and pinks – ethereal is the word I keep coming back to. It’s hard to believe they could taste as good as they look. But behind the skin is a juicy burst of flavor, wild sugars with just enough acidity to set it off, and a complexity matching the color’s nuance. With only 2-3 weeks in the season, the window is short. Enjoy :) Store in the fridge. Grown organically by Lagier Ranches in Escalon.

We haven’t had Chandler strawberries for most of July and August because the plants weren’t producing enough fruit for Jim to send us any. Swanton had just enough for the farm stand. Chandler strawberries are June-bearing which means they produce the bulk of their crop in the spring. At Swanton Berry Farm in Davenport, this usually happens at the end of May and first week of June. In July and August, the plants are still producing flowers and fruit but at a much slower rate. After the heat waves in early August, Jim told us that there were lots of flowers on the plants which meant berries were coming! We’re now seeing that small flush of berries – still limited but just enough to send us a little taste. Store in the fridge. Grown organically by Swanton Berry Farm in Davenport.