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The Root Rainbow

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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 [...]

Gold Nugget Tangerine

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Gold Nuggets are sweet and seedless little mandarin oranges, cousin to the Satsuma, recently bred at the University of California Riverside in the foothills of the Box Springs Mountains. This Citrus School also brought us the Navel orange. There’s gold in them thar hills!

Ginger

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Ginger is a powerful tuber that can be used as a medicine or zesty spice. There is a Chinese saying: “the older the ginger, the more it bites”. Peel the thin skin with a tip of a teaspoon.

Curly Chicory Endive

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The wonderful Chicory Family includes an array of sophisticated flavors: red, white and curly endive, escarole, frisee, tardivo and radiccchio.

Red Ribbed Dandelion Greens

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Dandelion in French means Tooth of the Lion, which describes its look, but also its bite. It is indeed related to the bright yellow flowers that forever bloom to children’s delight and gardener’s dismay. But unlike the weed, it has been carefully and organically cultivated.

Packham’s Triumph Pear

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Rumbly, bumpy, bulbous, gibbosic. Packhams’ are sweet pears, with character. Each a little askew like that friendly odd fellow at the bus stop. This pear’s parentage is Bartlett and Yvedale Saint-Germain. It softens as it ripens.

All About…Turkish Bay Leaves

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With a long history of culinary and medicinal uses, bay leaves are thought to have digestive properties and also act as an appetite stimulant. The Turkish bay leaf (Laurus nobilis) is generally preferred over its California cousin for its subtler, less mentholated taste, and it is also more healthful to consume. Bay leaves are used [...]

Ingredients for this recipe were included in The FruitGuys TakeHome box. Order yours today! www.fruitguys.com

Rutabaga: Queen of the Roots

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Known as “Swedes” in the U.K. (from the old Swedish word rotabagge, meaning “root bag”), Rutabagas are the glamour girls of root vegetables. In addition to being better dressed, their flavor sharpness/sweetness levels put them between turnips and parsnips, shading toward turnips. Treat them exactly as you would turnips, but with more assurance. Or as [...]

Ingredients for this recipe were included in The FruitGuys TakeHome box. Order yours today! www.fruitguys.com

How to Eat a Pomegranate!

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Slice off the pomegranate’s crown, and score the rind in 3–4 places. Break the fruit apart in a large bowl of cool water to avoid spraying juice. Separate the red juicy pods from membrane and the rind under water. Discard rind and membrane, drain seeds, and use.

Ingredients for this recipe were included in The FruitGuys TakeHome box. Order yours today! www.fruitguys.com

Corn the Vegetable: Food Frames Summer Memories

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By Heidi Lewis Sweet corn epitomizes summer, and for many it encapsulates a sensual memory from childhood. Do you recall corn picked at its peak, cooked, and brought to the table in steaming heaps? Maybe you were wiggling in your seat from anticipation — or to keep your sunburned legs from sticking to the chair. Was there a method [...]