September 2nd, 2021

HOLIDAYS

Monday, September 6th, Culinary Specialty Produce will be closed in celebration of Labor Day. If you are expecting snarky, smart-ass comments about the irony of that, we will take a pass. Monday is also the first day of Rosh Hashanah, the beginning of the Jewish New Year. We do not expect much activity on Monday, but our earth office will remain open to accommodate any advance orders or tracking updates so if you call, we will answer. Patriot Day is 9-11 obviously, and that is followed by Grandparents Day on the 12th. Wednesday, September 15th concludes the Jewish New Year celebration with Yom Kippur, the highest of holy holidays. By the time the Autumnal Equinox passes on the 22nd, things should get back to the normal fires and floods we are used to (there’s your snark).

POTATO UPDATES

If all goes according to plan, we will have a perfect transition into a new Colorado crop of fingerlings and rounds. We have been covering both coasts with storage product from Colorado that held up surprisingly well. By the end of next week our first shipment of new crop fingerlings will ship east for forward distribution. We will follow up with supplying California until their crop begins a few weeks later. This also means we have all colors to make mix and the new season of the Harvest Moon potatoes. Potatoes always look good when you pull a plant or two, it takes a harvest and a sweat to accurately access the quality, but so far so good. We will keep you informed.

WEATHER

Climate change or not, wildfires, hurricanes, tornados, and summer storms suck. Our hearts go out to our friends around the country, who suffer through these tragedies. Our offices are subject to storms on one coast and fires on the other. While we wish everybody speedy recovery and repair, for the water-soaked areas on the east coast remember that even though the day after the sky is blue and the sun is shining, there is still a very soggy underground which can quickly make trees and poles get tired and fall.

NEW PRODUCE QUIZ – WHO AM I ???

Best known for my dried seeds my name comes from the Latin for “Greek Hay”. My vast, quiet legacy includes being used by Egyptians to embalm their dead, to an ingredient in oral contraceptives. I am an herbaceous annual and I stand out about 18 inches tall. My laurel shaped leaves are very pungent, as are my long thin pods that house 10 to 20 quadrangular, brownish yellow, pulse like, pea size, seeds that are very bitter. Trust me, if you were stuck in one of those pods, you’d be bitter to. Either way my seeds must be dried to remove my bitter edge. Grown in the Mediterranean region for hundreds of years, I am most often associated with the foods of India, particularly curries. My leaves and stems are used in fresh salads, as are my sprouted seeds. Roasting my seeds yields a caramel flavor and I am often found as an ingredient in candy and syrups. My dried leaves, also known as methi, are often used in Middle Eastern root vegetable dishes. As a pharmafood I was a regular in Roman herbals. Egyptians used me as quinine and made flour from our seeds that was used to treat boils and abscesses. My seeds have a high calorie and mucilage content and are believed to be lactogenic, tonic, as well as an aphrodisiac