Cauliflower is having a moment.<\/p>\n
Once the pale, overcooked stepchild of the dinner plate, it\u2019s now the star of fine-dining menus, with prices to match.<\/p>\n
As master griller Steven Raichlen explains in \u201cHow to Grill Vegetables\u201d (Workman, $24.95), its size, texture and earthy flavor make it \u201cas close as a vegetable comes to a roast.\u201d That was evident at a recent Thursday night Fullerton Farmers\u2019 Market, where Black Sheep Farms\u2019 display stopped shoppers in their tracks.<\/p>\n
The colorful cauliflower arrangement from this family-owned company from Hemet looked more like a painting than a crate of vegetables.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe purple cauliflower is slightly sweeter than the white,\u201d explained Jordan Jaime. \u201cThe orange has the same flavor as the white, but it is softer in texture. It\u2019s called cheddar for a reason. The green is Romanesco, an Italian variety that looks like an alien egg and is a little nutty tasting.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cauliflower needs a cooler climate, Jaime noted. \u201cWe grow them in fall, winter and spring, but not during the heat of summer.\u201d<\/p>\n
A few steps away, another surprise. I thought kiwis were grown exclusively in New Zealand, but there they were, a basket of larger kiwis that looked like conjoined twins, and (the proof is in the sampling) much less tart.<\/p>\n
According to Izzy Pineda of Sunny Cal Farms, \u201cThese kiwis are the Mighty variety, structurally different than the kiwis from New Zealand. They grow larger, but taste similar.\u201d<\/p>\n
The sweeter yellow variety I\u2019ve been buying are grown in New Zealand, he said. \u201cThey\u2019re sweeter because lighter colors absorb more acid. That\u2019s why white peaches are sweeter than yellow peaches.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sunny Cal Farms\u2019 location in Reedley, California, 10 miles south of Fresno, is conducive to growing kiwis.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn Fresno, we have really hot days and cold nights,\u201d Pineda said.<\/p>\n
As I walked the market, fruit continued to steal the show. The most luscious strawberries I saw were the Monterey variety from Berumen Farms.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re one of the sweetest, too,\u201d Jose assured me. \u201cWe grow them in little farms in Anaheim and Westminster. One of the challenges in growing strawberries is it needs a lot of water and good soil. A lot of people try to grow them, but they don\u2019t succeed.\u201d<\/p>\n
Then something completely different caught my attention. I stopped at Baba Foods for my first taste of kefir, which Gaby M. told me is thick like Greek yogurt, but that\u2019s where the similarity ends.<\/p>\n
Hello kefir, goodbye yogurt! (Be sure and try the Ubi flavor.)<\/p>\n
\u201cAll fruit flavors are sweetened from real organic fruit,\u201d she said. \u201cThe chocolate does contain some sugar, and for the lemon and pistachio, we add honey.\u201d<\/p>\n
Visit the Fullerton Night Market at the Downtown Plaza, 125 E. Wilshire Ave., from 4:30 to 8:30 p.m. on Thursdays through Sept.3. Information: cityoffullerton.com.<\/p>\n
Fullerton\u2019s Judy Bart Kancigor is the author of \u201cCooking Jewish\u201d and \u201cThe Perfect Passover Cookbook.\u201d Her website is cookingjewish.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cauliflower is having a moment. Once the pale, overcooked stepchild of the dinner plate, it\u2019s now the star…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":282454,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[163,165,164,7,2628,611,77],"class_list":{"0":"post-282453","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-anaheim","8":"tag-anaheim","9":"tag-anaheim-headlines","10":"tag-anaheim-news","11":"tag-california","12":"tag-fullerton","13":"tag-orange-county","14":"tag-uncategorized"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282453","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=282453"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282453\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/282454"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=282453"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=282453"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=282453"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}