Mar­ket Report

Let’s talk pome­gran­ates. Most kids don’t mind get­ting messy while break­ing in to them. Stained crim­son hands and shirts don’t faze an eager ten or twelve year old.

That’s not what most cooks and chefs care to expe­ri­ence as they work the jew­eled arils in to their pome­gran­ate recipes.

Over the years and over the inter­net, many experts have given us var­i­ous meth­ods of extract­ing the seeds with­out dif­fi­culty.

The under­wa­ter method seems like a lot of work for the reward. Sure, we stay cleaner but work­ing the fruit is tax­ing. Scor­ing the fruit in sec­tions is a solu­tion. We must still work each sec­tion to loosen the seeds.

Scor­ing and invert­ing the fruit is also advised. This yields loose seeds through the sheer force of dis­lodg­ing them from their pithy mem­branes. Mus­cle and patience.

We are lucky enough this month to have a chance to expe­ri­ence a rare Hal­loween Blue Hunter’s Moon.

This uncom­mon occur­rence is a for sure a rar­ity. Mark the cal­en­dar to wit­ness this sec­ond full moon of the month on a hol­i­day ideal for it’s spec­tac­u­lar show­ing.

All Hallow’s Eve con­jures up images of were­wolves, gob­lins, zom­bies, and other scary crea­tures. They con­verge on Hal­loween to bring out play­ful and spooky enter­tain­ment.

When­ever two full Moons appear in a sin­gle month (on aver­age every two and half to three years) the sec­ond full moon is chris­tened a Blue Moon.

When we look at the full moon on Hal­loween night, it won’t actu­ally appear blue in color. Even so, it will be pretty unique. A full moon on Hal­loween occurs roughly only every 19 years, and in only some parts of the world.

Typ­i­cally, a Hal­loween full moon is seen only once every 38 years. The last Hal­loween full moon in all United States time zones was way back in 1944 — 76 years ago.

Enjoy­ing newly har­vested apples presents a wide range of deli­cious options. Pick­ing the right one depends on how we want to enjoy them.

Four excit­ing eat­ing apples are Wash­ing­ton grown Swee­T­ango, Cos­mic Crisp, Lady Alice and Lucy.

Swee­T­ango is crisp and sweet, with a lively touch of cit­rus, honey and spice. The tex­ture is amaz­ing, too— per­fectly crunchy and sat­is­fy­ingly juicy.

Swee­T­ango eats great on own, but also stands out in recipes, and pairs per­fectly with a vari­ety of wines, cheeses and more.

Cos­mic Crisp® apples are a cross between the Enter­prise and Hon­ey­crisp vari­eties. This large, juicy apple has a remark­ably firm and crisp tex­ture. The fla­vor pro­file is sur­pris­ingly sweet, mak­ing it an excel­lent eat­ing apple.

Cul­ti­vated with nat­u­rally higher lev­els of acid­ity and sugar, the Cos­mic Crisp® fla­vor packs such a sweet punch that in bak­ing recipes, added sugar can be reduced. In addi­tion to being sweet and crisp, it is nat­u­rally slow to brown when cut and main­tains its tex­ture and fla­vor when stored in the refrig­er­a­tor at home.

Lady Alice® apples have a dis­tinct pink stripe over a creamy-​yellow back­ground. This highly attrac­tive vari­ety dis­tin­guishes itself in other ways, also. The back­ground color deep­ens to an orange-​yellow after har­vest.

The actual parent­age of this apple is a mys­tery. It’s pre­sumed to have some golden deli­cious her­itage given the yel­low body undertones.

Fall menus dic­tate a change of gears. Espe­cially when it comes to choos­ing fresh ingre­di­ents.

Crav­ings begin for com­fort­ing soups, stews, casseroles and heartier dishes. New recipes get put into the week­night rota­tion.

Web searches surge for slow cooker and Instapot ideas. The last of sum­mer pro­duce and new fall har­vest items pair well with legumes, rice, noo­dles, and grains.

Triple digit tem­per­a­tures still linger in some parts of the coun­try. Once those finally fade away, we’ll jump right into col­or­ful autumn cook­ing. Soul sooth­ing foods are a tem­po­rary relief from the daily stress encoun­tered dur­ing these trou­bled times.

The phys­i­cal engage­ment of increased peel­ing, chop­ping and shred­ding takes the edge off a day of work or life stress. Fol­low­ing a recipe or try­ing a new cook­ing tech­nique puts focus on some­thing other than our­selves. A tri­umphant new dish con­tributes to nour­ish­ing body and soul.

Sweet pota­toes, kohlrabi, cab­bages, pome­gran­ates and per­sim­mons brighten up the fall pantry. Intro­duc­ing new greens and adapt­ing recipes to feed the fam­ily rein­vig­o­rates our enthu­si­asm. We can all use a boost to shake up the rote work of meal­time prepa­ra­tions.

There have been a parade of new cook­books released this year. Many of them are plant-​centric and breathe life in to the ordi­nary way we approach widely avail­able veg­eta­bles.

Red, green and orange bell pep­pers, chile pep­pers, corn, avo­ca­dos and cel­ery are all year round ingre­di­ents. How we bring them together for a sea­sonal riff is nuanced in roast­ing or pureeing.