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THIS WEEK’S FRUIT
Cal Red Peach
The beloved Cal Red is in a class by itself and is the “Oh my God” peach! A relatively new variety and a California native, the Cal Red was bred by Uni- versity of California botanist Claron O. Hesse in the mid 1960s. Aptly named for the Golden State, the Cal Red is a beautiful golden peach marked with a gentle, sun-kissed blush.
O’Henry Peach
Farmer Al’s favorite peach to grill, the O’Henry has the flavor, size, and crim- son blush that makes for a truly memorable peach. It’s elegantly pointed shape slices to an attractive heart shape for striking presentation. Our O’Henry harvest overlaps briefly with our harvest of the Cal Red leading to a matchup of two of our biggest varieties. At participating farmers markets, our Battle of the Peaches taste-offs between these two varieties grows more and more popular each year.
Flavor Heart Pluot
The Flavor Heart gets its name from its distinctively tapered shape. Its meaty, pale yellow flesh is very low in acid and the sweetness and color contrasts strikingly with its dark purple almost black skin.
Summer Fire Nectarine
The Summer Fire has a firm meaty flesh that isn’t as juicy as some of our other varieties but is packed with a red wine intensity that makes it a memorable and desirable nectarine. Often with a deeper reddish hue than the Fantasia, the Summer Fire is a variety that’s worth the extra effort it takes to slice and pit a clingstone: its warm
yellow flesh is streaked beautifully with red near the pit.
Flame Seedless Grapes
Firm, large, and sweet the Flame Seedless are one of the most popular varieties in North America. Enjoy these out of hand or try them in green salads, chicken salads, or fruit salads. Grapes can be enjoyed from the counter within a few days of receiving your box or refrigerated to enjoy them further into the week.
Dapple Dandy Pluot
Playfully called the “dinosaur egg” pluot, the Dapple Dandy has marbled pink and green skin over delicate white flesh threaded with rose.
Flavor King Pluots
The best pluot variety we grow! A dark-skinned pluot with red flesh, it has an intense rich flavor combined with sweet, spicy tones that are reminiscent of the Santa Rosa. A nice acid bite and firm texture that softens beautifully as the fruit continues to ripen, the Flavor King is amazing out of hand and equally good for baking.
A NOTE FROM CHEF BECKY
Dear CSA Members,
If you are like me, you wait all year for tomatoes. I start expecting them in May and June and begin asking ‘when will they be ready?’ knowing full well that it will be late July before I’ll get a decent one. They started trickling in about 2 weeks ago and now they have finally arrived.
Marlene and Kristin have done an awesome job this year raising tomatoes. They chose wonderful varieties of saucing, heirloom and hybrids. The heirlooms are big, bulbous and juicy. Al’s favorite is the big rainbow, a large yellow tomato with faint red striping throughout. The purple Cherokee is a deep purpely red with a greenish shoulders and it is my favorite. The smaller, more symmetrical red zebra is delicious, though a little more acidic than its green cousin. The early girls are as always firm and intense flavored. They are our constant companion now until (hopefully) November. We’re eating a plate of sliced tomatoes with olive oil and salt with every meal. My girls eat tomato toast for breakfast or as a snack. We toast the bread and rub it with garlic, stack with sliced tomatoes and drizzle olive oil over all. We have gazpacho almost every night with dinner; when it’s still 85 degrees at dinner time, nothing else will do.
Since San Francisco is cooler, we can serve tomato soup with crostini, goat cheese and pesto. Roasted tomatoes are going on a pizzetta over mozzarella cheese and our tomato conserva. The conserva is basically a tomato reduction of our amazing saucing tomatoes like the Sam Marzanos and the Amish paste. Every day, we are finding new ways to preserve tomatoes so we can have them all winter long. Roasting and freezing, pureeing, getting them put away so we can have the fall and winter to experiment with new canned tomato sauces and ketchups. Gloria and I are making pasta and pizza sauce to keep Maddie and Millie supplied all winter long.
Jose has begun drying the tomatoes, the saucing and hybrids are best for this as the heirlooms are just too juicy. We are always trying to catch them at exactly the right moment when the moisture is sufficiently low to eliminate the possibility of spoilage but pliable enough to be pleasant to eat. When they are ready, they will be packed in our olive oil and put in jars to be sold for the holidays.
This years’ crop is big and we are doing a much better job of capturing them this year than last. Even when they go, at least I know that I will have them in some form all winter long, hopefully up until next summer.
¡Buen Provecho!
– Chef Becky
