THIS WEEK’S FRUIT

Emerald Beaut Plums A freestone plum, the Emerald Beaut is a delicate green that turns golden with a hint of a blush. It has a firmer texture than the Santa Rosa with a crisp almost crunchy mouthfeel. One of our most hardy fruit, the Emerald Beaut just gets sweeter and sweeter without losing texture as it ages. Nutrition Scientists call plums a superfruit. Plums contain an antioxidant called chlorogenic acid, which may help reduce anxiety. Shinseiki Asian Pears Asian pears are also known as “apple pears” as they’re often described as having the texture and shape of the apple but with the smooth sweetness of a pear. Botanically, they’re true pears and are native to China and Japan. The Shinseiki is a medium-sized pear with smooth yellow skin. They’re nicely crisp with a sweet white flesh that’s refreshingly juicy. Pears are great sources of Vitamin C which, fights free radicals. They are also an excellent source of fiber. Eat the skins! Research shows that the skins contain three to four times as many antioxidants and anti-inflammatory flavonoids as the flesh. Doctors also recommend pears for introducing babies to solid foods because they are low in acid and will be easier on babies tummies. Warren Pears The Warren is to our pears as the Cal Red is to our peaches and the Flavor King to our pluots. This is Frog Hollow Farm’s signature pear and for good reason. Too difficult to grow for most farmers to consider it’s never caught on commercially but Farmer Al has never shied away from putting the time and effort into a fruit that tastes so good. It has a classic European texture, very soft and juicy with a silky sweetness that avoids the typical grittiness found in most pears. Pears are great sources of Vitamin C which, fights free radicals. They are also an excellent source of fiber. Eat the skins! Research shows that the skins contain three to four times as many antioxidants and anti-inflammatory flavonoids as the flesh. Doctors also recommend pears for introducing babies to solid foods because they are low in acid and will be easier on babies tummies. Pink Lady Apples A cross between the Golden Delicious and Lady Williams, the Pink Lady is a crisp and juicy apple with a tart finish. A creamy white colored flesh that resists browning makes this an excellent apple for salads and slicing. Also a modern day favorite for eating out of hand. The apple a day adage may be spot on. Recent research has shown that apples are associated with lower risk of heart diseases and strokes. They are also an excellent source of fiber and a good source of vitamin C.

A Note from Farmer Al

Dear CSA Members, Fall On the Farm Everything is picked now except the olives and one variety of very late harvest apples, the Hauer Pippins. We’re all very excited about the olives. After a painfully light crop last year (we ran out of oil two months ago) this year’s crop will be a record for us. It’ll be an early harvest as well. In fact, I am considering picking the olives a week earlier in their ripening stages to achieve a more traditional Tuscan flavor profile….peppery, greener, sharper, and more intense. It should be higher in polyphenols, and have a much longer shelf-life than the riper olive oils. The end result we are hoping to achieve is a truly delicious olive oil which is also good for your health. We’ll send you samples when the oil is ready, which should be before Thanksgiving! In other farm news….. In The Kitchen: Becky is baking pumpkin and apple pies and working with her crew to develop recipes for tomato sauces, salsas, and soups; pomegranate juice; membrillo from Quince; and Hosui Asian Pear juice. And, we now have several hundred of her amazing Rum Cakes (otherwise known as fruit cakes) available now and for the holidays. In the Orchard: We continue to work on habitat for wild life. We’ve recently installed a dozen or more owl boxes, 8-10 bat boxes, which my daughter Maddie charmingly refers to as “bat neighborhoods”. Bats like to live in clusters or colonies, whereas owls are particularly anti-social in nature, preferring a solitary house surrounded by about 10 acres of space! Bee gardens are growing great, and we continue to add new plants on an almost weekly basis. Christophe and his wife Monique continue their quest to create the perfect environment for worms. And, we are brewing up rich vats of compost tea on a weekly basis to grow trillions upon trillions of fungi, bacteria, protozoa, amoeba nematodes and other nameless microbes to enrich the life of our soil. Our hope and goal is that you, our CSA members, will feel and be a part of this intricate fascinating web of interacting, inter-dependant, and inter-lacing life forms. This is the food web of life. May it be delicious and life-sustaining!