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April marks the end of a lot of citrus varieties (mandarins and kumquats). But the late season Ojai pixie has just started to come in, one of the best tasting and sweetest tangerine among all other varieties. They are here now and should be available until early June, so enjoy them while they last.
Locally-grown strawberries are available this month. Because they are grown locally, so they are picked ripe off the vine, full of flavor and very sweet. Strawberries are a good ingredient to add to a fruit salad, filling for pies and cakes, or simply eaten as it is. Once the weather gets too warm, they will break down very easily, so now is the best time to enjoy them.
Rhubarb comes into season this month, and while it’s technically a vegetable, it’s treated as a fruit for culinary purposes. Rhubarb is so tart, it’s sour. If you‘ve eaten rhubarb raw, you will know what I am talking about. But once it’s cooked and paired with complementary foods. This fruit-masquerading vegetable adds depth and intrigue to recipes.
Rhubarb is often added to sweet recipes to balance out the sugar, like strawberry-rhubarb pie or streusel-topped quickbread. But it can also be used in savory recipes like sweet & sour pork or with grilled meats.
Now it’s the time to embrace the emerald green wonders of spring: sweet peas. Fresh sweet green peas are one of the few vegetables found only in their brief season. Beyond spring, fresh pod peas (aka shelling peas or English peas) barely exist. Fresh peas require shucking and it’s time consuming. So as long as they are available, we will have shelled peas in a container for your convenient in our produce department.