Another oldie but goodie... let's talk veggies and the Golden Girls!

In honor of the departed Bea and Rue, I've decided to pay homage to our favorite girls and talk vegetables.

Dear Tricia, Why do you blanch things? What's the point?

Good question, fancy pants. A lot of home cooks don't blanch veggies when they're getting down and dirty in the kitchen. To start off with, let me explain what blanching is, for all of the readers out there who think I'm talking about the promiscuous Golden Girl.
Blanching is when you take vegetables (most commonly green ones) and you cook them in salted, boiling water for about 10 seconds. Then you take them out and "shock" them by putting them in a bowl of cold water. The ice water stops the cooking process. Fun, right? Well what's the point in it, you ask? In restaurants, this is super convenient because you've already started cooking the veggies, and when an order comes in, the cook can just finish them off in a saute pan with some butter in it. It's a big time saver when there are 30 tickets up, and your chef is screaming at you "Just get the %$!& plates out, you %&!@& &*$%!" (Welcome to my life. It's like working on a pirate ship.)
At home, the big reason why you'd want to blanch your veggies is because it keeps their color. Anytime you cook vegetables (or fruit, for that matter,) they start to oxidize, which is fancy-terms for turn brown. Blanching them keeps their color so that when you finish cooking your green beans, they stay bright and colorful as a rainbow... a green bean rainbow.
The most convenient reason to blanch at home is if you're having a dinner party or cooking for a large group. When you have your veggies blanched ahead of time, you can just slowly reheat them in a saute pan and take them right to the plate when its time to serve dinner.
So, some things to remember when you're blanching:

1. Make sure your water is salted. It adds flavor. (Please refer to my post on pasta for more details and other hilarity.)
2. Have your ice water ready. If you take out the veggies and have to wait to get your bowl of ice water, then you're not blanching. You're just unprepared.
3. If a recipe you're following says to blanch for longer than 10 seconds, like some will tell you 5 minutes, go ahead and follow the recipe. But then send the author of the recipe an email that says "That's not blanching: that's just boiling a pot of green beans for a while and then sticking them in ice water."
4. Be happy about your new vocabulary. You're becoming more and more like me every day!

Now, if we could only find a cooking method that shares the same name with Bea Arthur... That would really make my day.

The truth about grapes: Part 4 in the Produce Series

Completing my last of 4 segments on seasonal fruits and ripeness takes us into fall. Ah... Fall. It's my favorite season, mainly because in Texas, it doesn't really exist, so anything close to it is very much appreciated. Sweater weather... foliage... and grapes. That's right, grapes come into season in the fall, and so do apples and pears, but they stay in season throughout the early part of winter, so we've already covered them. I will offer you some more interesting factoids in a bit though.
With grapes, you want to choose firm fruit that doesn't look anywhere close to being shriveled. Check to see that it is firmly attached to the stems, and with green grapes, look for ones that have a more yellowish color. And you can always taste a grape in the store to check for sweetness. I know what you're thinking. "But Tricia. That's shoplifting! I read your post about pineapples and I'm scared someone will kick me in the shins for stealing a grape." But I'm pretty confident that if you ask the produce guy if its okay for you to taste a grape, he's going to say yes. And then when he turns around, he'll probably roll his eyes at the crazy paranoid person in the grape section of the produce department. Grapes, no matter what kind, naturally have a silvery-colored film on them called "bloom." It's a natural yeast and you'll see it on blueberries too. What's cool about bloom is that in northern California, there's so much of this natural yeast in the air from all of the grapes in vineyards that some bakeries don't even have to use commercial yeast in their breads! Crazy, right? It's a great factoid to share with a wine snob at your next cocktail party. For full effect, I suggest ending your rant with "So stick that in your car and park it!"
The only other major fruits that come into season in the fall are apples and pears, and we've already gone over those for winter, so here's some fun facts that you can tell people to make yourself sound less dumb.
There are somewhere between 4,000-8,000 varieties of apples. They cross pollinate with other apples pretty easily, so there are lots of varieties that just haven't been named yet.
Apples won't ripen any further after they are harvested, they'll just eventually get mealy.
It's very common for commercial apples (not Organic) to be put into very cold storage for up to a year before they show up in your grocery store. Yes, you read that correctly.
Fuji apples will always have 5 bumps on the bottom of them.
Honeycrisp apples are the greatest invention since velcro. Well, that last one is subject to opinion, but I'm a firm believer that its true.

Summer summer summer time: Part 3 in the Produce Series

So, moving on to summertime fruits. Summer is my favorite because that's when peaches come into season and when it's more appropriate and people are less likely to judge your for drinking alcohol during the daytime.
When I was the chef at a hotel in Colorado, I ordered a case of Olathe sweet peaches one June. They were the most perfect looking peaches ever and they smelled amazing. Each one had a tiny green leaf on them and they were so cute. I cooked and baked with them, but I also placed them randomly throughout the hotel because they were so adorable. I think the housekeepers got annoyed with finding random peaches everywhere, but it made me happy. The rest of the stone fruits, like plums and pluots (a hybrid of plums and apricots)also come into season. Cherries and apricots are still in season during the summer. And along with the stone fruits, blueberries, cantaloupe, watermelon, strawberries, and raspberries are in season.
With peaches, plums, and pluots, you want to find ones that are not bruised and are soft. If you're going to wait a few days before you eat it, buy it firm and it will ripen at home. Stone fruits won't actually ripen after they're harvested, so when you leave it on the counter to soften, the only major change is that the acidity level will drop a little bit. Don't put stone fruits in the refrigerator. They hate refrigerators. Don't even try it: if you put a bag of peaches in the refrigerator, they'll start crying. Plus, they actually have more flavor at room temperature, so do yourself and them a favor and leave them out on the counter. Here's a cool factoid about stone fruits. It works best in peaches and apricots, but if you break the pit open with a hammer, there's a small bitter almond inside of it, called "noyeau," sometimes spelled "noyaux." It's where bitter almond extract comes from, and the French make a liqueur out of crushed noyeau and brandy. You have to roast it for a few minutes in the oven before you use it because there are trace amounts of a not-safe-to-eat enzyme and roasting them will get ride of it. I like to crush up the noyeau and put it in pies for a little extra almond flavor.
With summer melons, you can thump and kick them all you want, but the best way to check for ripeness is by looking at the end of the melon where that little indented dimple is. (The "blossom end." That's where the melon was attached to the plant.) Press it and if it gives a little, its ripe. A ripe melon will also smell like a melon: cantaloupe is the easiest to check for ripeness. Look for melons that aren't cracked and are heavy for their size. And with watermelons, the ones WITH seeds usually have more flavor than the seedless ones. You're trading convenience for flavor in this case. And who doesn't love spitting watermelon seeds at people? I sure do. And if you don't, then I don't want to be your friend.
Berries are usually ripe in the store, but strawberries are easy to tell if they're not ripe: its all about color and the leaves. Strawberries should be a deep red with no green or white on them. The leaves should be green and soft. Definitely pass on the ones with hard leaves that are starting to turn brown. Again, check for smell because ripe strawberries smell divine. It's like smelling the bowl of potpourri at God's house. It's heavenly. Blueberries and raspberries should not be mushy or molded. Don't be afraid to open up the container and check them out. If you're not going to eat them for a few days, spread them out on a plate and put them in the refrigerator... mold is contagious and if one goes bad in the container, they'll all get moldy. And I'm pretty sure that if one jumped off a bridge, the rest of them would too.

And by the way, I totally don't have permission to use that photo of Will Smith and DJ Jazzy Jeff. I hope I don't get sued because I'm pretty sure Will Smith is a Scientologist and nobody likes a litigious Scientologist.

Pineapples, mangoes, and papayas, oh my: Part 2 in the Produce Series

So lets move on to produce in the Springtime. Depending on where you live, Spring time is March-May. Spring break is usually in March but it's still cold. I don't get it. I once got caught smoking pot in my parents' garage during Spring break because it was way too cold to do it outside. If early Spring were warmer, then maybe that little mishap would have never happened and I wouldn't have gotten grounded for so long.
March is when pineapples, mangoes, and papayas are in season. Pineapples are pretty easy to tell if they're ripe, but everyone comes up with the most bizarre ways to try and check. Seriously, I once ran into a woman in the produce department who told me that she pulls the leaves off the top of the pineapple and if they come out easily, its ripe. What kind of hooey is that??! It's vandalism, not a check for ripeness, I'll tell you that. All you have to do is look to see if the outside is yellow. That's right: between all of the little brown sections, look to see if its yellow.
Yellow = ripe. Green = not ripe. And if you see someone pulling the leaves out, go kick them in the shins, and tell the manager so that they can be escorted off the premises for ruining produce.
Mangoes and papayas are like pears and peaches: they're ripe when they're soft. Stay clear of brown spots and buy it more firm if you don't plan on eating it right away. Smell is also a good helper... if it smells like a pineapple/mango/papaya, its ready to eat. I think papayas taste like feet, but that's a personal thing. I also find that it makes people incredibly uncomfortable if you stop and smell fruit while staring at them for long periods of time without blinking. I enjoy doing that very much.
Moving towards May, you get a couple of stone fruits that come into season: cherries and apricots. Stone fruits are a fancy way of describing fruits that have a hard pit in the middle of them. (More about that when we move on to summer. You'll get to learn fancy pants words like "noyeau!") Apricots should be orange, without any green on them, and are ready to eat when they're soft. Again, avoid ones with brown spots because that produce guy probably dropped it. Cherries are usually ripe when they're in the store, so you'll actually want to go for the firmer ones.
And can we talk about that saying "Life is just a bowl of cherries?" If anyone can explain how life is really like a bowl of small stone fruits, I'm interested in knowing why because I'd prefer life being more like a large platter full of barbecue sandwiches. But that's just me.

How to tell if fruit is awesome or if it will make you cry: Part 1 in the Produce Series

Dear Tricia, I need a fruit lesson! I have the recipe for Jason's Deli Fruit dip and I am wanting to try all the dip/fruit combos. But how do I know what is in season when? How do I know if the fruit is good or not? Do I thump it? Shake it? Ask it? Kick it?!

What an awesome question! I am definitely a fan of asking fruit if its in season. I do it all the time. It doesn't always answer me, but I like for it to know that I value its feelings. Shaking and kicking... not the greatest ways of checking to see if its good.
This question is like opening up pandora's box on this blog because I totally geek out over produce. It's my favorite section of the grocery store and I have been known to get pretty misty-eyed over perfectly-ripe peaches. (Its true. It was cute, fuzzy, it smelled good... like a puppy, except peaches don't shit on your carpet and chew up the couch. Peaches probably taste better than a puppy too.) Because the topic is pretty broad, I'm going to post it in different sections and start with winter, since that's what we're in the dead of right now.
Winter time is best suited for citrus fruit. Weird, right? You think lemons and oranges, and you think summer. But no... winter is when citrus in season. Limes, lemons, grapefruits, oranges, tangerines, kiwi; these are all your basic citrus fruits. When you're shopping for oranges and all of their weird hybrid orange friends (like tangelos, tangerines, clementines, kumquats), you want to pick the orange that is heavy for its size. A heavy orange means there's plenty of juice in it. Oranges from Florida (Valencia) tend to have more juice in them, but not be as attractive as oranges from southern California. Kind of like people, eh? People from LA and those damn Housewives from Orange County have the style, but Floridians have the substance. You'll probably notice most of your orange juice is marketed as Valencia orange juice from Florida. Here's a cool secret about picking oranges. You know how some of them are green at the ends? That's a GOOD thing. Buy those oranges. That means they stayed on the tree for a long time to fully ripen. The chlorophyll from the tree is what turns the starch into sugar to give you a really sweet orange. But when there's no starch left and its all sugar, the chlorophyll had no where to go but to the peel. It's called re-greening and its telling you "Holla! Pick me!"
With lemons, limes, and grapefruits, same thing. Go for a heavier fruit so that you know its juicy. Have you ever tried to make a cocktail with a lime and its all dried up when you cut it open? Its heart breaking. It ruins your cocktail. Don't worry about any brown spots on limes. Sometimes they just get a little sunburn.
With kiwi, you want to pick a soft one, depending on when you plan on eating it. If you don't want to eat it for a few days, pick one that is firm so that it'll be ripe by the time you want it. If you want to eat one soon, find a soft kiwi that yields to gentle pressure and doesn't have soft spots from being squished or dropped by the produce guy. I saw him do it. He dropped one. Don't get that one, get the one next to it.
Also in season in the earlier months of winter are apples and pears. With apples, you want to choose one that is firm, doesn't have spots from being dropped, and doesn't have any mold on the bottom of it where that little brown nub is. If you're cooking with apples, pick a crisper apple to holds up well to heat like Granny Smith or Gala. Macintosh aren't great for cooking with; they tend to get mealy and no one likes applesauce when its not supposed to be applesauce.
Pears are tricky because they're never ripe in the grocery store. I usually buy one and don't get to eat it until like 4 days later. Pears are just like kiwi: if you want to wait to eat it (like you have a choice), choose a firm one and it'll ripen up at home on the counter. If you want one right away, choose the softest one you can find. Just give it a little squeeze and make sure that same produce guy didn't drop it right after he dropped that kiwi. Also, avoid pears that have soft brown spots on them from being dropped. Those spots grow really fast and before you know it, the entire pear is one giant soft brown spot. No fun.
Another way to check apples and pears for ripeness is to smell them. If you can find a pear that really smells like a pear, it's good as gold.
If you want to know what else is in season while you're shopping, check the stickers on the fruit and see what country they're from. If they're from South America, they're likely not in season. But if they're from the United States or Mexico, they're closer to home and closer to being in season. They'll also probably be easier to understand when you ask them if they're in season.