All the news that's fit to eat
By Heidi Lewis Why is it that in spring we have that hankering to get our hands in the dirt? That urge to plan and to plant; to go to the nursery and load up our wagons with little pots of promise for a great summer garden. It must be some ancient gene or a [...]
By Heidi Lewis Hello, my name is Violet Beauregarde. You may remember me from Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory? I was the kid who chewed a lot of gum—and I mean A LOT—and while visiting Mr. Wonka’s factory, I got excited and grabbed one of his inventions. Short story shorter, the dang gum [...]
Hunting the Elusive Morel Mushroom By Elizabeth Weinstein Just off one of Washington, D.C.’s busiest interstates, a group of George Mason University students has gathered in a lush nature preserve, armed with collection bags, cameras, and some of the area’s top mushroom hunters. Their mission? Morels—those tasty, elusive, honeycombed beauties that pop up in woods [...]
By Heidi Lewis Springtime mandarin season makes me think of the Full Moon Fairy. I first heard about her when my daughter came home from kindergarten and announced that a fairy would be visiting us—every full moon. Ah, another late night visitor to add to the guest list. I was already pressed to remember to [...]
By Heidi Lewis Do you have a high-pressure task ahead of you? Something you’ve worked toward and prepared for? A critical test, presentation, golf putt, field goal? Cognitive scientist Sian Beilock says, relax and “think about the journey, not the outcome.” She outlines her study and advice in her book Choke: What the Secrets of [...]
By Heidi Lewis The cuckoo clock at the Greenwich Mean Time offices popped its head out at 11:02 a.m. on March 20, letting all us inside people know that it’s officially spring. For the outside world, the tightly wound mechanisms of nature’s internal clock are springing plants into action. Petals and birdsong may fill the [...]
By Heidi Lewis How’s the old saying go again? “March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb”? Or is it the other way around? March’s seasonal unpredictability requires farmers to be prepared for a wide variety of growing conditions. Their jobs include tending to tiny baby seedlings in warm greenhouses until [...]
By Heidi Lewis Play-by-play announcer, Joe, and his trusty color commentator, Bo, stand on the sidelines of Time. Joe: “Well, Bo, here we are again—another spin of the zodiac. This is exciting! Children clutching bright red envelopes, piles of mandarins brightening up the place, and concussions of firecrackers sound like applause greeting the Year of [...]
By Heidi Lewis Are there days when you need a little Python? Monty Python, that is. Sometimes in the face of regulatory hypocrisy, brain-numbing bureaucracy, or infinite feedback loops, wouldn’t you like to answer your phone with: “This is Arguments, you want Complaints next door.” Or spice up a gloomy Monday morning elevator ride with “Nudge-nudge, wink-wink, know what I [...]
By Heidi Lewis Celery root, or celeriac, has a long growing season, although it flourishes in the winter cold. Great chefs worldwide consider it the quintessential winter vegetable—it is prized for its delicate flavor. Its outward appearance, however, is not quite as delicate. Once you’ve peeled this knobby, lumpy bulb to reveal the gleaming-white orb [...]
By Heidi Lewis We are very pleased to have renowned veggipologist Mary Leekey here with us today to present her seminal scholarly paper: “Demystifying Leeks.” Dr. Leekey: “Thank you esteemed colleagues, honored guests, and fellow vegetable aficionados. For your consideration today, the leek—an elegant vegetable with a long, rich history. The slender stalks of leeks [...]
Medjool dates are natives of Morocco, the jewels of the date world, tasting of caramel and honey, A dessert date, Medjools were saved for royalty and special guests. They are a soft date that comes in the ripeness stage known as tamar (ripe, sun-dried). A connoisseur suggests simply letting the date melt on you tongue [...]
By Heidi Lewis Grapefruit will not be ignored. If you dig into one, you are just as likely to get a clownish squirt in the eye as to have your other senses treated to a trumpeter’s storm of fragrance and color. The aroma of a grapefruit can hit high notes Maynard Ferguson can’t reach. It [...]
By The FruitGuys ‘Tis the season for root vegetables, so named for their underground lifestyles. While carrots and potatoes are the best known and most eaten of the root veggies, read up and taste some of their lesser known but equally yummy and nutritious relatives, such as parsnips, beets, celeriac, rutabaga, turnips, and sweet potatoes. [...]
The Season of the Navel Orange, Grapefruit, and Mandarin By Heidi Lewis The bright sunshine of citrus has begun streaming in! Although ostensibly citrus is available year-round, a series of citrus characters will step in and out of the citrus odyssey. We like to give them heroic epithets as Homer gave his gods and goddesses [...]
Pomegranates, persimmons, and pumpkins! By Heidi Lewis You know what’s happening this season? Professor Pumpernickel is coming to the Palladium with his penguins? Nope. They’re showing The Perils of Pauline in Panorama? No. Polka-palooza? No. Perseids? Nope. Pah…then what? Pomegranates, persimmons, and pumpkins from The FruitGuys is what! The harvest of fall’s jewel-toned fruit has [...]
By Heidi Lewis How is it that apples are so inextricably linked to our sense of home? We find it in imagery and language in many things, from the old trope “as American as apple pie” to the idiom “apple of my eye.” Cultural anthropologists and critics point to our pioneering heritage as the source. [...]
By Heidi Lewis Have you had a chance to step into liquid this summer? Not just watching surf movies or surfing the net with a keyboard, but some long boarding? Surfing has certainly expanded since the pioneers “shredded” back in the 1960s, and surf culture is perhaps California’s largest export. It’s touched many of us with FOSE (flat-out surfer [...]
By Heidi Lewis The apple season cycle begins in summer with special varieties appearing across the country: the Gravenstein out West (an endangered heirloom variety), Ginger Gold apples back East, and Paula Reds in the Midwest, to name just a few. The season goes the year around with its peak in fall, the high noon [...]
By Heidi Lewis Dateline, Oxford Lecture Hall; Stephen Hawking presenting: “Quantum theory introduces a new idea, that of imaginary time. One can picture it in the following way. One can think of ordinary, real time as a horizontal line. On the left, one has the past, and on the right, the future. But there’s another [...]
Fresh herbs and fruit dress up summer beverages By Nicole Claro-Quinn What do you imagine when you think of summer drinks? For a certain generation it might be Hi-C and the “bug juice” you drank at sleepaway camp—then, years later, it’s frozen strawberry daiquiris (and shoulder pads, of course). The sweetness is what we remember, [...]
Courtesy of Coco of Coco Ranch, by Heidi Lewis “Coco’s Little Sweet Pear” is a family-heirloom tomato grown at Coco Ranch in Solano County, California. This unique tomato was bred by Greg House for his own family’s use and is now being shared. He developed this variety especially for the sunny Solano County climate and his organic growing methods. [...]
Did you get your first wake-up call about the “whom” conundrum from For Whom the Bell Tolls via Hemingway or Metallica? A high percentage of English speakers waver over the who/whom thing. It ranks first on most grammar mistakes lists, before which/that and lie/lay. The FruitGuys grammarians might suggest putting your pronoun problems to rest [...]
Babies on Board By Heidi Lewis Oh de bitty babies, so cherubic in their little baskets. Heavenly creatures, berries were flowers before they incarnated into sweet gems that dance on our tongues. Berries are the babies of summer, triggering synapses and opening pathways to good memories. They’re the delicate fruit that are most often anthropomorphized [...]
By Heidi Lewis You know what sweet summer cherries like? They like winter. That’s when they catch up on a little shut-eye and wake up refreshed. Many stone fruits and pomes need the chill hours to produce a good season of leaf, buds, and fruit. But man, when they’re ready—bada boom! Cherry season is here. [...]
Dear FruitFriends, In the following article, Heidi Lewis writes about genetically modified organisms (GMOs), and more specifically what they are (and are not) relative to food. The FruitGuys has always held the policy that we will never include GMOs in our fruit or vegetable mixes. We support the drive to label GMOs that is wending [...]
by Gretchen Bay Valencia and navel oranges are similar in flavor and appearance, but what distinguishes one from the other? Oranges are one of the most commonly grown fruits in the world, and both Valencias and navels are categorized as “sweet oranges” of the genus Citrus x sinensis. From the outside, the main distinguishing characteristic [...]
By Heidi Lewis Here they come, rolling into town— They get the hungriest looks from, everyone around— [drum fill…] Hey, hey, they’re the summer fruits! And they’re super duper cute! It may not quite be summer—but that point is moot! When summer fruits start to arrive in May, there’s a bit of a giddy vibe [...]
Timeline of our favorite berry By Heidi Lewis Today’s strawberry, Fragaria ananassa, with its large, practically perfect berries is the culmination of selective breeding going back centuries to when strawberries were tiny, rare, and found only at the peak of summer. Strawberries are mentioned in works by Virgil and Ovid, yet they made no appearance [...]
By Heidi Lewis (Throat clearing.) “Excuse me—we have a strict ‘no pet’ policy here.” “I don’t have any pets.” “What do you call that cute, fuzzy brown thing that you are petting?” “A kiwifruit.” (Pause.) “Oh.” Many marketing and branding folks know the story of the kiwi. Grown wild for centuries in southern China, a [...]
By Heidi Lewis “The doctor will see you now,” said the nurse pityingly. “What seems to be the trouble?” the doc asked without looking up. When greeted with silence, she swiveled around. “Oh!” the doctor exclaimed with a mixture of scientific surprise and gory glee as she freewheeled her three-wheel stool over to the patient. [...]
By Heidi Lewis The National Cherry Blossom Festival was recently held in Washington, D.C. This year’s festival commemorated the centennial of Japan’s gift of 3,000 cherry trees to the U.S. in 1912. The ornamental trees rim West Potomac Park’s Tidal Basin, which reflects their snowy canopy. Their beauty and a slew of special events attract [...]
Everything you always wanted to know about stone fruit (but were afraid to ask) Stone fruit season is coming. Here’s a primer on some of our favorites. Stone fruit that is woven into the pit is called “cling.” Fruit that has less fiber woven into the pit is called “semi-cling.” And fruit that is free [...]
Dried Fruit Stores Sweetness By Heidi Lewis Fruit dried on the vine or in the sun is the most ancient of food preservation methods known to humanity—and it’s still practiced today. Using the sun and the free hot air to dry fruit is another way farmers can be sustainable. It’s an efficient use of excess [...]
By Heidi Lewis It’s spring. Blossoms are abundant. Time to get pollinating in the fruit orchards. But since colony collapse disorder has been decimating the honeybee population, we’ll have to look outside the organization for some help. As they say in the bee biz, “No bees, no honey; no work, no money.” We all admire [...]
By Heidi Lewis When you gaze into your TakeHome case, think “salad.” If you’re still leaning against the counter looking for creative inspiration, consider taking these four steps toward salad creativity: Research. Percolate. Illuminate. Assemble. Research: Ever since our Paleo-dude forbearers set their mammoth steaks on beds of miner’s lettuce and Romans splashed olive oil [...]
By Heidi Lewis There’s a scene missing from the outtakes reel of The Matrix where Morpheus offers Neo some vitamins: “You take the blue pill, the story ends—you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill, you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep [...]
By Heidi Lewis “Shoot!” was likely what Annie Oakley said if she missed a shot. Cursing and shootin’ went hand-in-hand in the old west. She may have muttered “shucks” or “jeepers,” which were also considered pretty bad in 1910. The gravity of the ersatz swear words may have changed over the years, but profanity expert [...]
By Heidi Lewis Great contemporary dramatists like Beckett, Ibsen, and Chekhov were the first to indicate a “pause” in their scripts. Nobel Prize–winning playwright Harold Pinter became inextricably pinned to his dramatic use of silence, which was famously dubbed the “Pinter pause.” The pause was meant to convey unspoken dialog between sentences. In television drama, [...]
By Heidi Lewis Buzzzzz. “Whoooooo is it?” answers a languorous voice. “Sir, Brite Skies Incorporated at your service! We’re here to take measurements for the mammoth fake sun you ordered.” “Ex-squeeze-me?” “Sir, as it says on our website, it’s guaranteed to brighten your day.” “Whoa, dude—I didn’t mean to click on that link.” “Grey skies [...]
By Heidi Lewis Here’s a great idea for a new product—radish-flavored chewing gum! Some reasons why radish-flavored gum would be great: Radishes have great refreshing taste. They have a palate-cleansing effect, leaving you with a sparkly smile. Radishes and their juice are a digestive aid. Radishes have a variety of shapes and sizes and come [...]
Nutritional/medicinal info Fresh sage is an excellent source of vitamin A, calcium, iron, and potassium. It has anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties and is thought to enhance memory. Suggested culinary uses Here are some ways in which sage can be used in recipes: • Sautéed sage and mushrooms • Sage butter • Sage-roasted potatoes • Fried [...]
Ingredients for this recipe were included in The FruitGuys TakeHome box. Order yours today! www.fruitguys.com
By Heidi Lewis The bounty of winter squash includes a fabulous array of colors, textures, and shapes. Just like the American population, they have an international palette of names, such as delicata, turban, Hubbard, Hokkaido, carnival, and butternut. Named for outstanding characteristics or in homage—for example, the turban squash mimics the shape of the familiar [...]
By Heidi Lewis An old children’s classic, The Story of the Root-Children, tells of how, in spring, Mother Earth awakens the sleepy little root babies that live underground and sets them to sew new clothes and clean and paint the beetles and bugs. They emerge from their underground home dressed in new rainbow capes and [...]
By Heidi Lewis I can’t move. The last thing I remember was sipping tea and munching on a health-nut bar. Now I appear to be lying on the floor, immobile. I can just turn my head and—what? I’m covered in a web of threads staked into the ground. “You’re under arrest!” cries a tiny voice. [...]
By Heidi Lewis Shiitake, Maitake, and Reishi are the venerable mushroom triumvirate in alternative medicine. They are the most famous shaman healers of the mushroom kingdom. For classification purposes, living organisms are divided into five Kingdoms: Animal, Plant, Protista, Monera—and Fungi. These three mushrooms have undergone much scientific scrutiny and due diligence about their health benefits. They are full of [...]
By Heidi Lewis Have you noticed how the mighty oaks rain down their crops of shiny acorns on us in fits of boom or bust? Some years they pelt us with their bounty, making it feel like we’re walking on marbles and that hard hats are a requirement—and other years, nothing. The rhyme or reason [...]
By Heidi Lewis Many great innovations have come from the redwoods of Humboldt County, CA—kinetic sculpture racing is but one. The first race materialized in 1969 when local sculptor Hobart Brown challenged fellow artist Jack Mays to a race down Ferndale’s Mainstreet against his “Pentacycle.” Years of creativity, engineering, and good times have ensued, and [...]
Operating Instructions for America’s Favorite Fruit By Chris Mittelstaedt Long before I started wearing a banana suit to encourage people to eat more of them, American consumers were instructed in how to peel and eat the famous Cavendish, or sweet, banana: “It is eaten raw, either alone or cut in slices with sugar and cream, [...]
Dear Diary, I am soooo psyched to be going home for the holidays. We’re about to land, so the flight attendant has asked us to fasten our seatbelts and put our tray tables up. The pilot is flying low so we can get a good look at Souplandia. Practically every home in Souplandia has a [...]
By Heidi Lewis It sure is dark here in winter. But consider how dark it is in the rest of the universe. The universe is estimated to be 95% dark energy and dark matter; only 5% is ordinary matter, things like: us, planets, suns, asteroids, space stations, and galactic gas. NASA posits dark energy as [...]
By Heidi Lewis “Here I come to save the day!” Mighty Mouse’s musical manifesto heralded this tiny superhero’s arrival to save and protect us. But since Mr. Mouse is no longer in syndication, it looks like we’re gonna have to do the saving ourselves. The crush of serious news about pollution and global warming that comes into our homes [...]
By Heidi Lewis A bounty of winter squash are starting to roll in—a fabulous array of colors, textures, and shapes. Just like the American population, they have an international palette of names, such as: turban, Hubbard, Hokkaido, and butternut. Named for outstanding characteristics or in homage—for example, the turban squash mimics the shape of the familiar headdress, and the [...]
By Heidi Lewis At the Still Life Modeling Agency, the pomegranate gets call-backs all the time. You can see why—it’s such an intriguing fruit. The beautiful maroon color, the little calyx crown, and the skin, which looks like a worn, burgundy leather suitcase packed full of mysteries, perhaps even love letters. When opened, it reveals [...]
By Heidi Lewis The peanut is humble. Not often do we think of its historical gravitas when we crack them and snack them at a ball game, stomping “We Will, We Will Rock You” on their littered shells. We’re watching the game. It’s not as if we’re in a museum gallery looking at Rossetti’s painting [...]
By Heidi Lewis A herald of winter in many regions is the persimmon. Where the rain or even sleet has begun, the bare persimmon tree, with its orange ornaments, makes a striking silhouette against the grey horizon. These fruits can stand a chill; as the old farmer saying goes, “Persimmons grow where mangos fear to tread.” The common persimmon [...]
By Heidi Lewis Author Michael Pollan says, “Eat food. Mostly plants. Not too much.” It sounds like a Zen kōan, doesn’t it? By “food,” Mr. Pollan means eating nonprocessed, natural fare. He says, “If your grandmother wouldn’t recognize it, don’t eat it.” That rules out the center aisles of the supermarkets where the snacks are usually found. Instead of chips, [...]
By Roxanne Crittenden, Capay Valley Farm Shop This week I did something I hardly ever do. I took a walk through the grocery section of a prominent big-box store. The produce section sported small rounded carrots in plastic bags, grapefruit from Texas, apples from Washington and green beans from Mexico just in time for Thanksgiving. [...]
By Heidi Lewis “Where’s Billy?” “In the back of the car.” “OMG! He’s been there for days! Don’t you think he’ll rot?” “No, Billy won’t rot, as long as we don’t let him get moist. He’ll just dry up and hollow out.” You see, Billy is our prize squash. He’s a Marina de Chiogga that [...]
By Heidi Lewis How has Thanksgiving evolved for you? Is it Normal Rockwell traditional, political, locavore, or perhaps a blend? Whatever your approach, the Wampanoag native people have touched all of our menus. The Wampanoag, or People of the First Light, are credited with welcoming the Mayflower Pilgrims. When the Pilgrims’ crops of barley and [...]
Pumpkins: Not Just for Halloween By Heidi Lewis Mr. Jack O’ Lantern’s sudden demise after Halloween may have inspired investigation by the budding entomologists in your family, but there is plenty more to be done with pumpkins than just turn them into doorstops. While most Halloween-variety carving pumpkins are edible, their flesh is stringy and [...]
By Heidi Lewis “Anthony! Anthony!” Forty years ago, a TV mom stuck her head out the window calling her TV son home for lunch. In the ad, the boy sprinted through Boston’s North End to get home. It wasn’t his bionic ears alerting him, but the lure of spaghetti with homemade tomato sauce. The ad [...]
By Heidi Lewis Quince is indeed an old-world fruit. It’s not shiny or sleek or ready to eat. It’s oddly shaped (sometimes bumpy) and when eaten raw, Fruit Detective David Carp likens its taste to “slightly sweetened furniture.” So what’s to love? Perfume. You should catch a whiff. It’s the same intoxicating aroma that the mystical poets of Persia [...]
By Heidi Lewis The bullfrogs and cicadas serenade the wide-eyed kids, whose faces glow orange in the firelight. The semicircle of Lake Lactuca campers gazes up at the tepee wall as Ranger Rhonda magics her hands into a shadow play: “Little Bunny Foo-Foo, hopping thru the forest, scooping up the butter lettuce and bopping it [...]
By Heidi Lewis The glittering gates to the Summer Tomato Gala have opened wide, the red carpet has been rolled out, and the scent of jasmine wrist corsages fills the air. An exhalation escapes from the mouths of the refined guests as the pumpkin coach pulls up. “The Heirlooms are here!” they cry. Making himself [...]
By Chris Mittelstaedt and Gretchen Bay Larry saw Mary eating a kiwi berry. “Sherri!” cried Larry, “I think that’s scary! Isn’t a kiwi supposed to be hairy?” “Oh, Larry,” laughed Sherri, “on the contrary! Kiwi berries are smooth, with nary a hairy.” Mary saw Larry was still very wary. “Let’s not tarry too long on [...]
By Heidi Lewis Have you ever had a friend (imaginary or real) who went to the store to get sweet potatoes and came home with yams? Yes, it’s happened to the best of us. It might help you to know (and save your friend a trip back to the store) that yams would probably be [...]
Separated at Birth By Heidi Lewis What most of us recognize as a classic pear is the European Pear (Pyrus communis), cultivated since the Bronze Age – the Botticelli form, Audrey Hepburn neck, and colors ranging from eye-popping chartreuse to jewel-toned maroons and golds. The buttery quality that we equate with many European varieties can [...]
Tomatoes Inspire and Nourish By Heidi Lewis The French called the tomato the pomme d’amour, or The Love Apple, for their belief that the exotic tomato had aphrodisiac powers. Tomatoes might not be responsible for romance in people, but eating tomatoes does seem to spark a lust for more tomatoes. Tomatoes are a member of [...]
By Heidi Lewis “Alas, poor Yorick, I knew him well.” You may be inspired to recite dialogue from Hamlet as you hold in your hand a head of cabbage. Perhaps you hold it at arm’s length—even bent on one knee—channeling Laurence Olivier. But do be sure you say it correctly: “Alas, poor Yorick. I knew him, Horatio—a fellow of infinite [...]
By Heidi Lewis Capturing fireflies in a jar, recalling the smell of sweet peas or the sensation of jumping off a rope swing into a cold river. When it comes to summer, we seem to want to bottle the sense memories – just to keep ‘em for a little longer. Pickling has long been such [...]
By Heidi Lewis Monks and nuns of the Forest Tradition, a branch of Theravada Buddhism, live in the seclusion of the forests of Thailand and Sri Lanka. They wander the forests, meditate in caves, sleep in modest mosquito net tents called klots, and take their meals at the base of trees. The forests are now dwindling, but historically the [...]
By Heidi Lewis ‘Joe’ has his hands in his pockets, rocking heel to toe gazing into a crate of Gravenstein apples. Barbara Walker, who operates the Walker Apples’ booth, listens to Joe with full attention whilst her arms move like an octopus, weighing and bagging apples, making change, and nodding to other customers. Joe is [...]
By Heidi Lewis Get your scorecards ready! Sharpen your pencils, polish your forks, and pull up a chair—the tomato season is upon us, as evidenced by the basket of ch-ch-ch-cherry toms in our TakeHome cases this week. Cherry tomato bushes are usually the first to produce, and since they keep producing, their season lasts the longest—and so is [...]
By Heidi Lewis A fashion edict of the 20th century was “only wear white between Easter and Labor Day.” Wearing white flapper dresses, knickerbockers, and shoes in summer has its practical purposes, and eating white fruit in summer has delicious ones. Have you noticed peaches and nectarines with white flesh this season? They have wonderfully cooling names [...]
By Heidi Lewis “Ginormous” sounds like a word a second grader made up to mean super-duper big—but it was, in fact, accepted into the Webster’s Dictionary in 2007. New words must go through a rather rigorous trial to get into dictionary-land, and ginormous is fairly high ranking — #7, between Bollywood and microgreens. New words don’t get in without causing [...]
By Heidi Lewis How many people say “worth two in the bush!” when they enter the town limits of Bird-in-Hand in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania? We don’t know, but FruitGuys buyer Jessica says it when she heads to Bird-in-Hand to talk with Kauffman’s Fruit Farm about their summer fruit. Kauffman’s Fruit Farm was started in 1911 by Amos Kauffman [...]
By Heidi Lewis “In the hierarchy of healthy vegetables, heirlooms are at the top,” says Shyryn Joy. She explains this statement by adding that “they’re closest to their natural order and have the most integrity.” Vegetables from heirloom plants are true to their seed, as opposed to hybrids—when planted, an heirloom seed will give the same results every time. They’re [...]
