fall equals spring

Fall in America means Spring in Australia and this is where our latest shipment of goodies comes from.

Tender and very sweet asparagus stalks. We're usually not big asparagus fans, but we have to admit that these were exceptionally good. We had them steamed, blanched, grilled, and stir-fried with with shrimp.

These Aussie mandarins were the sweetest we've ever had. They did have a ton of seeds though, but other than that little extra effort they were a delight to have.

On your supermarket shelves these days, you'll find ECO bananas from Australia. They're environmentally friendly and you'll recognize them instantly from their red wax tip.

And in the refrigerated section, you'll find these new specialty items from the US. Framani sausages from Berkeley, California.

And Blue Hill Bay smoked seafood from Brooklyn, New York.

We also got a big 5 pound bag of black quinoa with our delivery, so we're in search of more good quinoa recipes. We find that it has a nuttier flavour than regular white quinoa, but we couldn't really tell the difference in taste from the red kind.

Last week's SCMP Post Magazine featured quinoa prominently in its recipe section.

the hidden world of table grapes

We find ourselves in Central Coast, visiting vineyards in the heart of California's fruit farms and learning all about the various varieties of table grapes. As far as we could tell, what you found in your supermarket were really only 3 types grapes; green, red or black (either with or without seeds). But as we learned on this trip, this was just easy marketing for the average consumer.

These seedless black grapes are actually called Autumn Royal.

They have a thicker, chewier skin and an intense grape juice-like sweetness to them.

These red grapes are called Big Globe or Red Globe.

They are meaty, have seeds, and are characteristically bigger and rounder than your average red seedless grape. Apparently these are the most popular variety to be shipped to Asia.

These red seedless grapes are called Krissy.

Thinner skin, good crunch (especially when we sampled them right off the vine), and a generally good snacking grape.

Ever wonder why fresh grapes have a dusty look to them when you pull them out of the bag? Well that shows you there has been very minimal handling of the fruit when it is cut from the vine, carefully weighed and inserted into its plastic packaging, and then packed into Styrofoam boxes. We learned that table grapes are picked and packed immediately on the field. A constant stream of trucks will then rush these packed boxes to a cooling warehouse where they will await shipping. As you can imagine, this is very labour intensive and requires staff with skilled expertise to harvest and prepare the grapes for maximum flavour, quality and quantity. This is also all done under very sunny and hot (85-95F) temperatures.

Do you know what shattering means when it comes to table grapes? It's when you lift a bunch of grapes and some of them fall off the stem. The more that fall off, the greater the shatter. A buyer will randomly check a crate of grapes for their shatter before committing to a shipment. This crate of green seedless grapes was rejected because there was too much shattering upon inspection and they were already showing signs of dehydration because of the brown discolouration in the stems.

These green seedless grapes may look very average, but they are actually a very special variety called Cotton Candy. And they're named that because they actually smell and taste like cotton candy! Intensely sweet and fragrant because of its high sugar content with less crunch than your regular, tarter green seedless.

And these odd looking black grapes are special too because of their elongated shape. They're not widely available yet, but taste like a regular black seedless.

They're called Moon Drops and you get quite a lot of grape in one bite.