1. Boston Lettuce

PEAK SEASON | VALUE PRICED | BEST FLAVOR

May is National Salad Month. Not sure who decides such things, but this one works out well. Fresh Lettuces are now in peak season on the regional farms of south New Jersey. One of my favorites to enjoy is Boston Lettuce! Sometimes called Green Butter Lettuce or Bibb Lettuce (usually a smaller version), Boston Lettuce is known for its tender, smooth-textured leaves and crisp, juicy ribs that feature fresh and mild, yet noticeable flavor. I just like the way chews – that sounds weird but there’s a difference from other leaf lettuces.

Fresh, tender Boston Lettuce from the fields southern New Jersey. Be sure to rinse the sand away!

Boston Lettuce is ideal as a bed of greens under chicken or tuna salad, or the cupped whole leaves can be used as a low-carb wrap. It adds layers of texture when added to other leaf lettuces in salads and pairs when with both creamy dressings and light vinaigrettes. When dealing with NJ-grown Boston Lettuce be sure to rinse the head thoroughly since it is grown in sandy soil which tends to settle between the leaves. Boston Lettuce is also in season from California and hydroponic greenhouses in USA and Canada. Find Boston Lettuce recipe ideas here.

2. Blackberries

BEST FLAVOR | PEAK SEASON

Flavor alert! I taste Blackberries every week. I consider it part of my day job. There are times of the year and from certain growing regions when Blackberries: 1) taste flavorless and lousy, 2) taste tart but delicious, or 3) taste impressively rich and sweet. I am happy to report that antioxidant-rich Blackberries (particularly the varieties grown by Driscoll’s Berries) are the latter right now – very nice flavor and snack-ability. To be even more specific… if you find Driscoll’s brand Blackberries with “Grown in USA” (California) on the label they will taste plump, mildly sweet and juicy; and if the you find Driscoll’s brand Blackberries with “Grown in Mexico” you can expect them to taste intensely candy-sweet with some tanginess underneath. Cool!

Blackberries… oh, they’re tasting good right now!

Always wash your Blackberries just before use, store them in the fridge and try to use them within a few days of purchase to get the most out of your purchase. In addition to snacking, making smoothies and topping your cereal or yogurt – here are some Blackberry recipe ideas.

3. Sweet Corn

PEAK SEASON | VALUE PRICED | BEST FLAVOR

Sunshine Sweet Corn (spring Corn grown in Florida) is fully in peak season and stores are promoting it strongly. White, Yellow and Bi-Color varieties are all eating good – nice flavor, good sweetness and a juicy and tender texture. Get some mouth-watering Sweet Corn recipes here.

Steaming in the husk on the grill makes the silk easy to peel!

COOKING TIPS: I’ve been enjoying Sweet Corn cooked on the grill with the husk still on. This has been for the simple reason that the pesky strings of silk are sooo much easier to remove when it’s been steamed in the husk. Remove loose outer leaves, rinse the husks with water to add some moisture, grill for about 8 minutes, flipping once. The husk will look burnt, but when you let the Corn cool for a couple minutes so it is able to be handled – you’ll find husking it is a breeze. Plus, your Sweet Corn will be perfectly steamed and have a hint of smoky flavor.

4. Sweet Mini Peppers

BEST FLAVOR | PEAK SEASON

Becoming a regular shopping list item at our house, flavorful Sweet Mini Peppers are easy to rinse and snack on whole. They’re also wonderful on the grill, roasted in the oven or stuffed as an appetizer. Sweet Mini Peppers are grown in both greenhouses and open fields, and they’re in season right now. Yum!

Sweet Mini Peppers with Cajun Seasoning grilled on skewers with Vidalia Onions.

5. Romaine Hearts

VALUE PRICED | PEAK SEASON

In the spirit of National Salad Month, but still recognizing that the grill is calling you – how ’bout a Grilled Organic Romaine Heart salad? Crunchy and juicy Organic Romaine Hearts from California are plentiful and priced fairly this week. Or maybe this Chipotle Portabella Salad will intrigue you.

National Salad Month + Grilling in May = Grilled  Hearts of Romaine.

RECIPE: Easy Grilled Romaine Hearts

• Preheat grill to High
• 2 Romaine Hearts, rinsed, outer-most leaves removed
• Lightly coat  Romaine Hearts with cooking spray, or brush with olive oil
• Place  Romaine Hearts on grilling surface
• Season with coarse salt and cracked pepper
• Flip once within minutes when grill-lines are defined
• Serve with your favorite Caesar Dressing, or crumbled cheese and Vinaigrette

Buy Smart. Shop Healthy. The Produce Geek | Jonathan K. Steffy

Greetings Food Lovers…

Did you know Florida has the perfect conditions right now for harvesting super-sweet corn?

Florida is the leading producer of fresh Supersweet corn in the U.S. It’s harvested with more natural sugars and retains its sweetness longer than traditional varieties. The texture is generally crisper than the creamier standard of sweet corn. Supersweet varieties convert their sugars into starch much more slowly after the corn is picked. Florida grows more of it than any state in the union, and Palm Beach County grows more than any other county in the state.

Supersweet corn produces kernels with two to three times the complex sugars of the standard corn varieties. This corn should be eaten either fresh, canned, or frozen before the kernels become tough and starchy. One acre of land can produce 14,000 pounds of sweet corn.

Corn Facts:

• Sweet corn has separate male (tassel) and female (ear) flowers on each plant

• Sweet corn occurs as a spontaneous mutation in field corn and was grown by several Native American tribes

Produce Talk:

Tomatoes:

Hothouse tomatoes out of Canada will continue to be in excellent supply this week, and sizing will be mostly large. Florida has been shipping nice vine ripened tomatoes. Canadian cluster tomatoes are plentiful and absolutely beautiful at this time. There is still some Mexican and Guatemalan product available, but nothing can touch the quality of this new crop Canadian product. Grape and Cherry Tomatoes are in good supply out of Florida. Pricing will begin to creep up slightly, mostly due to Mexican supplies dropping off. Quality of Florida grapes and cherries continues to be excellent!

Corn: 

Volumes on crate corn out of Florida are expected to be solid right through the beginning of May. Flavor has been top notch on corn to start the season.

Asparagus: 

Demand exceeded supply last week and that trend should continue into this week. The market on California asparagus will remain strong as supplies have tightened. Asparagus out of New Jersey looks great. The market is going to remain strong as some cooler weather slowed production last week. There were some supply issues out of Peru last week which pushed the market up.

Broccoli Crowns & Cauliflower: 

There is plenty of supply and quality is excellent on both items! Expect prices to be steady.

Berries: 

The full berry patch is becoming reasonably priced now. Strawberry prices moved down again last week due to clear and warm weather in all growing regions. Quality (bruising) has become a concern from some areas, with the best quality coming from the northern regions of Watsonville and Santa Maria. Raspberry and blackberry supplies continue to increase and prices are gradually moving downwards. Blueberries from Georgia are in full swing now. We have good supplies of full pint blueberries this week but Florida is finishing quickly so the market is firm.

California Citrus: 

The navel market continues to get stronger as growers raised prices yet again. The market will stay strong and may go higher as the season on regular navels draws to an end at the end of May and the start of Late Lane navels in June. Prices on the Late Lane’s traditionally are much higher. The lemon market gains strength as we move into warmer weather and will keep going up. Minneola Tangelo supplies will be light and sporadic; so prices will be higher. Cara-Cara navels are winding down also, as that season will finish in the first week of May.

Stone Fruit: 

Peaches, both yellow and white, and yellow nectarines have started with light volume. The prices are high and the available fruit is generally smaller. Cherries are still a week or two away. A word of caution: California is still searching for answers from the hail storm a couple of week ago!

Cantaloupes & Honeydews: 

The offshore season is almost finished with only a few more loads coming in. Prices are firm and mostly running to the larger sizes. Mexico will start both melons this week and they will have smaller sizes available.

Grapes: 

Mexico and Coachella are still looking good to start this week. There is plenty of fruit to finish the Chilean season so there will not be a gap. Prices are steady, but firm, with whites getting double the price of red seedless. There will be some cheaper boxes available that will be valuable, but you will have to look past some defects.

Lettuce: 

Iceberg lettuce is limited because many shippers have light numbers, plus demand is high. Also, the rain from last week has forced shippers to walk over product instead of packing it causing less supply in the market. Expect what you buy to be good quality, but prices will be up. The markets for butter lettuce, romaine, green leaf, red leaf, and romaine hearts is firm due to overall lighter numbers. Expect pricing to be up a bit.

Fresh Corn with Rosemary-Garlic Oil

Ingredients:

- 1 1/2 teaspoons garlic, finely chopped

-1 1/2 teaspoons dried rosemary (or thyme) crushed

-1/4 teaspoon salt

Hail hits CA stone fruit,

Rain slows CA strawberries

Shape of things to come

Stone Fruit

Red and black plum from Chile has the demand is up and so are prices with supplies available for another two to three weeks. Peaches have started in Southern California with the Ambercrest peach, which typically runs small with light supply. Significant hail has been reported from recent storms in the Kingsburg and Vasalia areas of California. Damage to the season’s stone fruit crops is yet to be determined. Stay tuned!

Strawberries

More rain in California this week and last is keeping strawberry prices from moving down as expected after the Easter holiday. Quality from both the

Santa Maria/Oxnard area and Baja, Mexico have been good overall, with California berries generally lighter in color. Driscoll’s berries continue to be extremely tight; they won’t begin to promote volume until the Watsonville region starts in late April or early May.

Blueberries

Florida is coming into the peak of the blueberry season this week, but a smaller than normal crop size in both Florida and Georgia crop is keeping

prices higher than average for this time of year. Shippers don’t expect to be in the 6oz packs until after Mother’s Day mid-May, when North Carolina begins to peak.

Raspberries and Blackberries

This week we will see a much improved supply in both Blacks and

Raspberries from Driscoll, so prices will be slightly lower. However, Driscoll expect overall supplies to remain limited, so we cannot yet expect a sustained price drop during the next few weeks.

Tomatoes

Florida tomatoes remain steady and quality has been excellent. We’ll have beautiful jumbo size vine ripes this week, as well as plenty of jumbo and extra large Roma tomatoes. The market on Canadian grown cluster and beef tomatoes will continue to slide into next week. Volumes are excellent, and growers need to move.

Asparagus

Quality out of California has been excellent. Supplies will tighten a little bit this week as Mexico finishes up by mid week. The weather looks good in New Jersey with product coming on this week. Markets will be strong this week with increased demand out of California and New Jersey

product just starting.

Corn

Corn out of Florida is looking great, and will remain in excellent volume for the next couple weeks.

Grapes

The markets on all grapes continues to strengthen. White grapes, which

should run through the first week of May, will continue to go up from this point. Red seedless are not as volatile with prices as last week, but as demand increases on the reds due to less demand on the whites, expect prices to creep up. The last of the black seedless are in this week. The best value will be on red globes as supplies will be good for the next two weeks.

Citrus

The Florida season is winding down fast. Grapefruit from here on will be sporadic with mostly smaller sizes and quality and appearance will be down. Juice oranges will run well into May and that market has been steady and sizes peaking on the larger sizes.

On California citrus, the market on navels will go up again which will be the trend going into the latter part of the season with substantial increases when we start with the Late Lane variety.

The lemon market has started its little move upward as we move into spring. California Minneola Tangelos will go through the end of the month and pricing is on its way up. Our first arrival of California grapefruit will be in this week as we make the transition from Texas and Florida grapefruit as those seasons wind down.

California Vegetables

Lettuce—As shippers transition from Huron, CA to Salinas, CA, along with rain, the supply on iceberg, romaine, green leaf, red leaf and romaine hearts is not as abundant as it has been over the past several weeks.

Quality remains nice, but expect pricing to be up slightly.

Broccoli—There is a little less supply of broccoli due to transition to Salinas, CA and because of the rain. Prices will be up slightly, but there is still good supply to promote.

Cauliflower—The cauliflower market is very active. Supply is limited and harvest is limited due to rain. Expect pricing to be up next week. Have you tried the great tasting orange and purple cauliflower? They are sweet!

Onions

Vidalia Onions: Expect pricing on Vidalia onions to be lower and more supply as more shippers get up and running.

Have a fruitful week!