Last week’s YOUR PRODUCE MAN’S PRODUCE PUZZZZLE still dealt with Avocados: The Super Bowl is the #2 event for Avocado usage in the U.S. What is the #1 event for Avocado usage in the U.S.? As American as the Super Bowl is, someone said that the #1 event for avocado usage is the 4th of July. Well, sort of. It is the "4th of July" for Mexico. Only they call it the 5th of May, or Cinco de Mayo. This week's YOUR PRODUCE MAN’S PRODUCE PUZZZZLE deals with fruit in high altitudes: There is a fruit which is used by some athletic trainers to help increase oxygen intake in high altitudes. In fact, when the Harlem Globetrotters play in Denver, the mile high city, their coach sets out a lot of this fruit. What fruit is it? See next week's "Fresh Tips" for the answer.

TOMATO, FRUIT (Monday, Feb. 14): All this week, Valentine’s week, we are taking letters from housewives…Desperate Housewives. It seems their mothers didn’t teach them everything they needed to know about their fruits and vegetables. Now, trying to take care of their husband and children, these housewives have become desperate for produce answers. Well, who better to answer these desperate questions from Desperate Housewives than Your Produce Man. I am the Sherlock Holmes of produce. I take the mystery out of produce. So let’s begin with our first letter:

Dear Produce Man:
Sometimes when I get my tomatoes out of the refrigerator, I go to slice them, and they are mushy inside. I thought I bought good tomatoes. I hate having to throw them away. Where can I find good tomatoes?
Sincerely,
Rose
Springfield, MA

Rose, it’s not an issue of buying good tomatoes, it’s an issue of where you are storing them. I spoke to one of the top tomato scientists in the country. He is trying to develop the perfect tomato, but he said it better than anyone: “It doesn’t matter if we come up with the perfect tomato. Consumers will still ruin the tomato by storing them in their refrigerator.” Here’s the tip-off on tomatoes Rose. The tomato is a subtropical fruit…just like the banana. Since they love the warmth of the tropics, they hate the cold of your refrigerator. Cold temperatures cause chill damage. One of the volatile flavor chemicals, Z-3-dexenal, actually dissipates in cold temperatures. The cold will also break down the molecular structure on the inside of the tomato. Thus, you get a mushy tomato. Instead of storing your tomato in the refrigerator, try putting them on your counter with the stem end up. If it gets cold at night where you live, then put a newspaper over the tomatoes. This helps them stay warmer. In the produce company I used to work at, we actually had “tomato blankets” that we put over the tomatoes when we delivered them in our cold refrigerated trucks. Since we now know that the tomato is a fruit, here’s another letter…about fruit:

Dear Mr. Produce Man:
My kids tell me I don’t know how to pick out good fruit. Is there a key in picking out the sweetest fruit?
Charlette
Miami, FL

Charlette, that is a very good question. Let me give you a couple of facts that may help you pick out perfect fruit, sweeter fruit. First of all, buy in the peak of the season. That’s when sugar and flavor will be at their very best. Second, buy fruit that is very heavy for its size. Whether it’s an apple or a watermelon, the heavier it is, the more juice is inside. The more juice inside, the more sugar. Sugar has to have some place to be. It lives in the juice of the fruit. No juice, no sugar. Third, smell the fruit. If it smells like a cantaloupe, it will taste like a cantaloupe. Granted, some fruits, like apples and oranges, are harder to smell, so this leads me to my final fact on picking perfect, sweet fruit: Simply ask the produce manager for a taste. Look, they’re happy to slice you piece of plum or pear. If you like what you eat, the produce manager knows you’ll buy more of it, and you’ll come back for more. There is one other issue. That’s the issue of ripening fruit. Make sure your fruit is ripe before serving it to your family. But, that’s another letter for another day.

LEAF LETTUCE, FRESH-CUT LETTUCE (Tuesday, Feb. 15): We’re taking letters from Desperate Housewives all this week. They are desperate for answers to their produce questions. Here’s out next letter:

Dear Your Produce Man:
I am trying to get my husband and kids to eat more salad. I choose good lettuce, nice and crisp. When I toss the salad with dressing, it looks great, but in just a few minutes, by the time my family comes to the dinner table, the salad looks like a soggy mess. Can you help me?
Lover of Salads,
Theresa
Kansas City, MO

Theresa, don’t give up on salads. Just give up on the way you’ve been preparing them. Here’s the scoop on salad greens. First of all, make sure your salad greens are dry before you put on dressing. If the greens are wet, the dressing will simply slide right off and end up at the bottom of the salad bowl in a messy pool. Salad green leaves are basically “waterproof.” If they weren’t, then every time it rained in the lettuce fields, the leaves would become bloated with excess water. There is a waterproof, waxy coating on salad leaves. This coating is called the “cuticle,” which causes water to roll right off, like water on a duck’s back. So why in the world does the salad become a limp mess once the dressing has been added? Well, if you took a cross section of the lettuce leaf and look at it under a microscope, the leaf would look just like a sponge. When you pour the dressing onto the salad, if there is just a tiny pinhole leak in the waterproof cuticle, then the dressing will find that hole and immediately soak into the spongy leaf, causing it to wilt and get soggy. So what’s a Desperate Housewife to do? First, don’t add the dressing until just before your family eats the salad. Second, use less dressing than you normally would. If the greens are dry, the dressing will easily coat the leaves. And it doesn’t take much to do that. Third, toss the salad with your hands. And do it gently. This helps prevent damage to the cuticle, and helps keep the dressing on the leaf, not in it. Finally, I like to put my salad plates in the freezer for about 15 minutes before serving. That way, the salad stays crisper, longer. Many people now buy the bagged lettuce, so here’s a letter from someone who’s bugged by brown lettuce in the bag:

Dear Produce Man:
Once I open a bag of lettuce, how do I keep the rest of the lettuce in bag from turning brown? I hope you can help. I’m tired of throwing lettuce away.
Cindy
Spokane, WA

That is an excellent question. The companies who sell fresh-cut lettuce use the highest, latest technology in cooling, cutting and packaging. Oxygen caused “oxidation” on the cut cells, which causes the brown. Lettuce companies “flush” the bags, pushing all of the oxygen out. However, when you open the bags, you are once again introducing oxygen to the cut cells of the lettuce, which will cause oxidation, turning the lettuce an ugly rusty brown color. Here’s one thing you can do: Invite your neighbor to dinner so you use up all the lettuce. No leftovers to turn brown. If that’s not practical, then here’s the next best thing. Push out as much air as you can form the bag, then twist the top and seal it good. Use a clothes pin. That helps. You can put the bag into another Ziploc bag, once again, pushing out as much air as you can. The less oxygen, the less oxidation. Try to use the remainder of the lettuce within two days.

AVOCADO, KIWIFRUIT (Wednesday, Feb. 16): It seems our mothers did not teach us everything we needed to know about fruits and vegetables. All this week, we are taking letters from Desperate Housewives about the fruits and vegetables they buy and serve to their families. Here’s our next letter:

Dear Your Produce Man:
I tried making Guacamole for our Super Bowl party, but I couldn’t find any ripe Avocados in the store, and mine were still almost dead green by the time I needed them. How should I ripen Avocados?
Julie,
Boston

There are some fruits that you just need to be patient with. Take your time and let them ripen. There is nothing like a ripe piece of fruit. It makes you happy to have 23 muscles in your mouth, and it lifts every taste bud to attention. On the other hand, there’s nothing worse than biting into a piece of fruit and have it taste like the plastic you took it home in. First, what is ripening? Well, ripening is a chemical change in the fruit that causes the fruit to taste sweeter. For example, when you are ripening a peach or nectartine, it gets softer and they taste sweeter. However, it did not gain any more sugar content than before it was unripe. The chemical change in the peach and nectarine was that acids dissipated. With the acids gone, you’re left with just the sugar, making the fruit taste sweeter than before. Melons are another fruit that doesn’t gain any sugar content, however, the ripening process causes the flavor chemicals to mix and become richer in taste. So ripening is a process by which fruit will taste sweeter and become softer. So that leads us to the Avocado. You need to plan ahead for ripe Avocados. When I need ripe Avocados for the weekend, I will go to the store on Monday and buy the Avocados. When I get home, I will put the Avocados in a brown paper bag, roll it up and put it on the counter. Do not refrigerate the fruit. Cold temperatures stop the ripening process in some fruit, and will slow it way down in other fruit. On Wednesday, I take a peek at my ripening Avocados. If they look like they are coming along just fine, I’ll roll the bag back up and let them continue on. If they look and feel like they still need some help, I will add an apple and a banana into the bag. Unrefrigerated apples will “ripen” 8 times faster than refrigerated apples. That means the apple is putting off a ripening gas called “ethylene.” All fruits that ripen put off this ethylene gas. By enclosining the apple and banana in with the Avocado, the ethylene gas becomes trapped, building up heat and helping the Avocado ripen a bit faster. So when yo need your Avocado ripe for Guacamole, it will be ready. Why not leave the fruit on the counter to ripen? Well, that leads us to our next Desperate Housewive’s letter:

My Produce Man:
I leave my Kiwifruit on the counter to ripen, but before they ripen, they shrivel up. I love Kiwifruit. What am I doing wrong?
Betty
San Diego

Poor Kiwifruit. Mishandled. Have you ever wondered why some fruits and vegetables have waxy substance on them? This waxy oil is a natural coating on many fruits and vegetables. It helps keep the fruit or vegetable from dehydrating quickly. When some fruits and vegetables are washed after picking, the natural oils are washed off, so growers will re-apply the waxy oil. Kiwifruit is one fruit that has no natural oils on its skin. Therefore, if you leave the Kiwifruit exposed in the open air, it will dehydrate and shrivel before it ripens. The best thing to do is to enclose your Kiwifruit into a fruit ripening bowl or in a paper bag, or at least covered with some newspaper. This keeps it out of the open air, and helps limit dehydration. Thereby, you end up with a ripe sweet Kiwifruit, not a shriveled one.

GREEN BEANS, CHILE PEPPERS (Thursday, Feb. 17): All this week, Michael Marks, Your Produce Man is answering questions to desperate letters from Desperate Housewives. The dirty little secret to these Desperate Housewives is that their Moms never taught them all they should have about fruits and vegetables. Like this next poor Desperate Housewife, who is aghast with her Green Beans:

Dear Produce Man:
I have the hardest luck with Green Beans. When I buy them, I know I’m getting really good ones, tender ones, ones that snap. But by the time I use them, in just a few days, they look horrible. I’m refrigerating them in a plastic bag. What else should I be doing?
Alice
Topeka, KS

Did you know that all fruits and vegetables breathe? That’s right. They breathe. Of course, when the fruit or vegetable is still on the tree or vine, or on the plant or in the ground, they breathe opposite of humans. They take in Carbon Dioxide and relese Oxygen. Which kind of good thing, because we humans need the Oxygen. However, once a piece of fruit or vegetable has been picked or cut, it begins breathing like people. They take in Oxygen and release Carbon Dioxide. They have lungs. Well, not muscle lungs like people do, but they have “lungs.” Look at a Golden Delicious Apple. See all those tiny black specks? Those are called “lenticils.” Those are the “lungs” of the apple. That is where they take in Oxygen and release Carbon Dioxide. All fruits and vegetables breathe at different rates. We’ve learned how to measure this by the amount of Carbon Dioxide they release. We measure this at 59 degrees over an hour period of time. We end up with how many milliliters of Carbon Dioxide is released. Which fruit or vegetable do you think breathes slower than all others? Well, what do we call someone who just sits on a couch all day? They are barely breathing. We call them “Couch Potatoes.” That’s right, the potato breathes slower than any other fruit or vegetable. That’s why they can last so long. They are harvested in the Fall, and we still have those same potatoes in the Summer. They breathe at a rate of 8 ml of Carbon Dioxide per hour at 59 degrees. Apples last a long time too, but not as long as Potatoes. Apples breathe at a rate of 24 ml of Carbon Dioxide per hour at 59 degrees. Strawberries don’t last nearly as long as many fruits or vegetables. That’s because they are breathing faster. They breathe at a rate of 75. Lettuce and ripe Bananas breathe even faster, at 200. But fastest of them all…are Green Beans. They breathe at a rate of 250 ml of Carbon Dioxide per hour at 59 degrees. Think of this way. If you buy your Green Beans today for Sunday dinner, those Green Beans will be doing jumping jacks in your refrigerator for several days. They may look great today, but by Sunday, they look beat, worn out. They are. So my rule of thumb for Green Beans: buy them the day before you need them.

Dear Produce Man:
I love Jalapeno Peppers, but some people in my family (I won’t name names) can’t take the heat. What should I do?
Jane
Loredo, TX

If they can’t take heat, tell them to stay out of the kitchen. Well, that doesn’t help. Here’s some Heat 101. The “heat” in a pepper comes from Capsaicin. The “burn” results from the molecule's long hydrocarbon tail. The capsaicin key opens a door in the cell membrane that allows calcium ions to flood into the cell. That ultimately triggers a pain signal that is transmitted to the next cell. Capsaicin is insoluble in cold water, but freely soluble in alcohol and vegetable oils. This is why drinking water after munching an habanero pepper won't stop the burning. A cold beer is the traditional remedy, but the small percentage of alcohol will not wash away much capsaicin. For relief from a chile burn, drink milk. Milk contains casein, a lipophilic (fat-loving) substance that surrounds and washes away the fatty capsaicin molecules in much the same way that soap washes away grease. So have a glass of milk ready for the burn victim. Also, about 60% of the “heat” in a chile pepper, is found in the seeds and white membrane. You could cut those out before adding the pepper to your recipe. That way, you get the flavor of the jalapeno, just not all the heat.

CAULIFLOWER, ASPARAGUS (Friday, Feb. 18): In our final day helping Desperate Housewives, we continue answering the desperate questions, the desperate cries for help concerning fruits and vegetables. Here’s a letter about overcooked Cauliflower:

Dear Your Produce Man:
Sometimes I just get so busy in the kitchen, I forget to check my steaming Cauliflower. I’m not kidding, but 9 times out of 10, I overcook it. My husband hates mushy Cauliflower. So do I. Can you help me?
Connie
Las Vega, NV

OK, everyone raise your hands if you have overcooked Broccoli, Cauliflower, Brussels Sprouts, Asparagus, or Green Beans. Connie. Take a look. You’re in good company. I even see Emeril’s hand raised. Good chefs cook by time. They set timers. Visit the kitchen of a busy restaurant while they are preparing food the night’s dinner rush. You’ll find timers going off every now and then. Well, one thing you can do to keep from overcooking the Cauliflower is to use a timer. Set it for 10 or 15 minutes, depending on how much you are cooking. When the timer goes off, check the Cauliflower. If it’s fork tender, meaning you can easily poke it with a fork, it’s done. Get it off the heat immediately. One thing some chefs will do is to then plunge the cooked vegetable into ice cold water. This stops the cooking process. All vegetables continue to cook, even after you have taken it off the heat. Once you have stopped the cooking, then you can simply re-heat the vegetable in a warming tray or in the microwave. Now let’s say you do overcook the Cauliflower. What should you do? Well, first thing, do not moan or whine from the kitchen. Don’t give your family any reason to think you don’t have everything under control. Take the Cauliflower and mash it with a potato masher. Add some salt and pepper and some Italian herb seasoning. Then scoop the mashed Cauliflower into a beautiful serving dish and freshly grate some Parmesan cheese right on top. Throw it under the broiler for a couple of minutes just to brown the top layer of grated cheese. Then, when you take it to the dinner table, proudly tell your family that you are trying a new recipe called “Cauliflower Fantasia.” Speaking of overcooked vegetables, Asparagus, has turned to slime for many a Desperate Housewife. However, our final letter comes from a Desperate Housewife who is having an argument with her mother:

Dear Produce Man:
My mom says that thin Asparagus is best. I think thick Asparagus tastes better. Can you settle our argument?
Mary
North Platte, NE

During the 1970s, it was California Governor Jerry Brown who coined the phrase “small is beautiful.” That’s when chefs began serving baby vegetables, and that’s when consumers began thinking that smaller baby vegetables had better flavor. Thus, your Mom has bitten into a political ploy. When it comes to Asparagus, small may be beautiful, but large is absolutely gorgeous. You see, Asparagus fields are in production for up to 20 years before new crowns are put in. From about 5 – 12 years, those fields are putting out the best Asparagus, tender, sweet, flavorful…and super large. As the fields age, from about 13 – 20 years, the crowns are getting tired, and they begin producing smaller spears, not as tender and not as sweet. When the large Asparagus is harvested, a lot of it is immediately put onto airplanes and sent to some of the best hotels and restaurants of Austria, Germany and Switzerland. The best European-trained chefs in America know that bigger is better when it comes to Asparagus. Next time your Mom is over for dinner, serve some jumbo size Asparagus. First cut off the very bottom, then peel the spear from just below the tip. Brush a little Olive Oil on them and grill them. When they come off the grill, sprinkle some lemon juice on them, with salt and pepper. I guarantee you that your Mom will forget her folly and join the ranks of Jumbo Asparagus lovers. And hopefully, she’ll say, “You were right, dear.”

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