On this episode of Big Blend Radio, Linda Kissam "Food, Wine & Shopping Diva," talks with Robert Schueller of Melissa's Specialty Produce about their fabulous fall produce and specialty snacks.
Hear about Muscato Grapes, Pomegranates, and Chocolate Persimmons, all kinds of Winter Squash including Pink Pumpkins, Spaghetti, and Buttercup, plus, their delicious Baby Dutch Potatoes. Other fall favorites include Fruit-filled Crepes, Chile & Lime Seasoning, and Green Hatch Pepper Cashews. Check out Linda's article plus Melissa's recipe for Butternut Squash Casserole, here: https://blendradioandtv.com/listing/a-bounty-of-autumn-exploring-the-seasons-finest-fall-produce/
Travel writer Linda Kissam appears on Big Blend Radio every first Saturday. Follow her podcasts here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzIUCV2e7qm1LoD5wiSJu4NM4KZxuJYoj
Follow Diva Linda's adventures here: https://allingoodtaste.info/
Learn more about Melissa's Specialty Produce: https://www.melissas.com/
This episode is also being shared and featured on other Big Blend Radio Network Channels including the "Big Daily Blend," and "Eat, Drink & Be Merry." Check out our network of podcasts: https://www.podbean.com/podcast-network/bigblendradionetwork
Welcome to Big Blend Radio with travel writer Linda Kasam, the food, wine and shopping diva. Everybody today we're going to be talking about fall deliciousness. It is fall and that means we get to get into squash, we get to have spice, we get to have still sweet goodness and diva Linda is all about good taste and so she's brought our friend Robert Schuller back on the show for Melissa's specialty produce, go to Melissa's dot com and go to blend radio and TV dot com you'll see a link actually also in the episode notes of diva Linda's article about Melissa's specialty produce but first off diva Linda how are you? Very well thank you I'm back in Tacoma on the boat so I'm doing this through the boat so hopefully you'll be able to hear me the entire way but I'm very excited to work again with Robert and talk about fall produce, it's the best time of the year I think as a former teacher fall was always the most important time because as soon we first started classes so I don't know even after all these years I've still sort of in that mode so anyway I'm really happy I got a wonderful sample box from Robert and Melissa's and I'm going to share it with you today and it'll be quite wonderful. I'm excited about this because it looks like you've got hatch chilies just in time like the season right so Robert tell us a little bit about this so if we don't get the actual peppers because I know that can sell out really quick you've got treats in that box so welcome back. Well thank you for Lisa and Linda for having me back on the show glad to be here on a new season we're just getting into the fall season for many like here in Southern California where Melissa's is though we distributed into all 50 states it still feels like summer we're just getting over a deep wave there however the seasons are consistent with mother nature and so we have this abundance of fall produce now you're talking about hatch peppers from hatch New Mexico the season is always August and September it's a it's a small six to eight week season where you can go and do some go to some of the stores and buy cases of hatch chilies and get them roasted that we're at the tail end of the roasting season however Melissa has this whole line of hatch essentials and these are items that use hatch chilies within them and two of the new items that I know you guys got samples are the we have this whole line of patch powders red and green at salsa but the two newest items to this are we're doing now patch cashew nuts and hatch trail mix and that now extends our line to about just less than two dozen different items that you can get during this time of the year typically late July through about October November and then all the hatched up disappears for the year and then I'll come back into season next year so we better move on it everyone I'll tell you this I ate up all of the trail mix I should have never done that I sat down with it and it was really good and it just kept getting better I swear to you I went through at least half of it and my husband found the cashews and that was over in a very short amount of time so those two items are really good they have some spice in it it's not going to kill your palate or your tummy it's just fine it's just wow really I don't know how you did it but you balanced those tastes out really well without killing the tongue and so forth so I like that a lot well that's the thing about the hatch chilies the hatch chilies come in mild meat and hot and even at the hottest it doesn't get hotter than like a serrano but in in the hatch essential central products like the trail mix we do a whole line of nuts like pecans pistachios and the newest are the cashews we use the light the lighter variety on there so people can enjoy and not burn their mouth and that is the key on the hatch essentials so everybody can enjoy it that's awesome that chili seasoning that you sent oh my goodness that is a really wonderful addition to so many dishes that you want a little bit more spice in but once again you don't want to kill your palate and I'm from California so I have a pretty strong palate I can eat most anything but I really like that that powder as well so that was a great cooking essential as you say and look forward to using even more that really especially in chili oh my gosh that's really good then I was going to ask you about that and our box is still on its way it's been following us from a hurricane so you guys go I said it to the next location but would you say you would use this because you know when we talk about our warmer climates and I know diehards up in even the Midwest will get out with their grill on Thanksgiving even if it's snowing right so would you use this seasoning as a rub on meat okay I was gonna say the the the chili the newest chili seasoning is a chili and lime seasoning it's a red so it's a little sweeter but it's not to particularly hot okay so that particular seasoning is particularly used on fresh fruit like mangoes and pineapple and stuff like that but yes Lisa you can use the chili lime seasoning on meats as well but first and foremost we are a produce company and so all of our produce is is product friendly for specifically produce but I don't see why you can't use it as a rub or as an extra seasoning in replace of pepper and salt which is traditional of what we like here in the United States but implementing just a little bit of heat of that chili and the salt that's in there as well to make it just taste just over the top but I definitely put it on fruit I love putting chili lime sauce on papayas mangoes chinaples cucumbers ekama you could do it on fruits and vegetables and margarita glasses and martini glasses it's a great it's a really great spice I think it's one that can sit right next to your salt and pepper and laurie's it's just really it could be it could it's a standalone and it's an add in so just sort of depending what you want to do either with your fruits or your meats or whatever but I like it a lot I like this because when you're entertaining in fall we all start having you know gatherings and you know it's football season right is that what people are watching football now you know I don't know anything about sports seriously but you know with with this it did to me this is really great because you can have people over like I love like salsa's that aren't overpowering like well I like really spicy but for people coming over when you have guests over you never know what everyone's palate is like in regards to heat so this sounds like a nice balance like you could make it oh now wait a minute now what about peaches with some spice that you could grill I'm sorry and I'm getting a little yeah yeah oh yeah putting putting spices on on other fruits is not uncommon very popular in the Hispanic cuisine but definitely I've done it on peaches I've done it on plums nectarines so and then chart it off on the grill there I think a lot of people don't understand that you can grill a lot of fruits and stuff like that and when you're grilling you know a seasoning like that can wake the flavors up not only caramelize and char it but also give it an extra flavor with the chili lime seasoning so definitely yes do it Linda okay let's do it let's do it I want I want to make salsa from it now I kind of feel like we can make our own salsa with some of these products you know you know what would go really well with the two is your salsa your hatch chili salsa I just discovered that last year all that is really really good really yummy so I don't know got a whole line there that it's just great tell us about the crepes I'm all excited about that because you know we've we've talked about the crepes before and then you've got the dressing and you don't have to actually do all the hard work on crepes so now you've got a new crepe snack to go right yes and that those are those are in the box as well and those are some of our most newest products there so Melissa's has always done a crepe it is a which you would consider a french pastry it's just the flat ground crepe and they're separated by plastic sheets and you just like pull them out and you see them usually merchandise in the produce department right next to the berries because people love making crepes with strawberries blueberries even like kiwis raspberries blackberries but we may we went a step further and created what we call crepes snacks s and a x and that's our line of products that are used with few ingredients but are very tasty and handy to go so the crepes snacks they they're ready to go out of the package we have four flavors are sub four of our most popular tropical fruit flavors banana pineapple papaya and mango so if you like any of those tropical fruits rolled up in a crepe ready to go they have been a popular now back to school snack to put in your kids lunch boxes when they go to school you'll find them yes in the produce department by the crepes where the berries are or you'll find them by our clean snacks and cocoa snacks which are the little granola products that you find in the produce department and the little coconut snacks you find in the produce so this is our increasing line of snack products that are just grab and go throw it in a lunchbox or put it in your bag lunch when you go to work or whatever and it's just a a little almost dessert like flavor and and product that you can enjoy anytime during the day is this going to be part of your camping foods too for camping and for definitely definitely the crepes snacks you don't they're shelf stable so you don't have to keep them in the refrigerator you could simply just put in your pocket put it in your backpack and yes they are one of our camping essentials which is a big promotion that we do every year during the spring to summer months but the crepe snacks are available year round you don't have to wait until next spring we'll have them year round in your local produce department i like this for the road too i like it it's really wonderful for the boat for our boat because when we're out in the middle of the uh Canadian waters trying to fish there are no stores that carry a lot of stuff they're just little baby mom and pop stores so this is a great way to have a nice snack that doesn't take up a lot of room it stores easily and it stacks easily anybody that has a boat will understand you don't have a lot of room for anything including food but you make room for this this is really nice and it doesn't it's as she said it's shelf stable it's really nice i like it another shelf stable yeah and and and i think it also means that you know Melissa's produce needs to also expand into Canada now because diva Linda would like that it really would you have no idea you have really no idea well you know Canada uh imports most of their their fruits and vegetables i mean when you go into the store it says that almost all the products are either from produce or from California summer from South Africa etc but uh yeah we could do a lot better with Melissa's just saying oh speaking of free pomegranates let's talk about pomegranates because not only they're good for cocktails they're great for salads they add color right so when we look at and i was thinking about this with the grapes the pomegranates fall are the is the jewel color season right so we kind of can eat the fall colors with these you know delicious sweet jewels but these jewels are really good for our bodies right so isn't that part of this is eating something nutritious for us right Robert definitely yeah pomegranates one of those fruits majority of it actually it's one of those crops that really comes out of California California has been always known for their pomegranates there and it's the little seeds or what they call the arrows is the edible seeds that are in inside the skin obviously on a on a pomegranates red but actually the fruit itself the seed and the pulp around the seed is red and it's entirely once you get into the seed and extract them you can go to melises.com and it'll show you how to easily seed a pomegranate because you don't eat the skin or typically not the white pulp it's kind of bitter but there's an easy way to do it where you could do it underwater and you know the white pulp floats the top and the seeds fall to the bottom so there's an easy way to extract it because one thing about pomegranates is when you cut into them they squirt and you have white on and you know once you you have to wear your pomegranate shirt when you you deal with pomegranates there but the season just started in late August early September and we'll typically go the domestic season will go all the way until February pomegranates are now pretty much available on a year-round basis because of the consumer demand on them so we do import them in the off season as well but the arrows itself I love to extract them and put them into like a fruit salad people like to use desserts you could do drinks with them I mean you go into the juice aisle of your local grocery department pomegranates an essential drink because it's high antioxidants vitamin A vitamin C it's all in there it's super great now diva Linda what do you do with pomegranates what do you like well i'm from california originally and so they were powerful as i was growing up a lot of people just had trees and all that so um we had a lot of it and um i'm i'm so i just like to eat the seeds i think they're quite wonderful um and and then as of course as i'm endured a bit i like them in salads just like you said they're just wonderful the color the crunch has a little bit of a crunch and uh but as you say you have to be very careful how you open these things and extract the seeds and stuff so because they uh stain actually they're a beautiful stain but it's a stain and so just make sure you go to Melissa's to find out how to properly open it. I put the link in there for everybody in the episode notes on this because it's so that's my clothing is red wine pomegranate and uh red beets that's how i get to you know dye my clothes personally that's the way to go but i want to quit i want to get to the grapes first when do the beets come in because um from what we're hearing so many health benefits on benefits on the power of beets and some of my friends who are in the um the food industry are like they can't keep beets in stock as much and i think it's because there's there's i've heard some medical reports that they've actually done studies on how some people have actually been able to get off of their blood pressure meds don't listen to me on the doctor stuff you need to talk to your doctor get your get your blood pressure down first right and talk to your doctor but beets the power of beets on people's blood pressure um apparently is doing a lot of good stuff in the world so have you seen that trend robert yes definitely actually um one of my uh seven cookbooks that i've done with molasses is the 50 best plants on the planet and beets and the beet green so if you find the beets with the greens on top the greens are just as healthier as the beets itself so they have a lot of nutritional information beyond vitamin a vitamin c tasium and stuff even though beets are available year round they're a little bit more difficult to find fresh however molisa does a steamed beet in a package that's ready to go those are the easier ones to find it's in the refrigerated sections usually by some of the other root vegetables like radishes um and whatnot and uh molisa does this whole line of steamed items ready to go we do them with lentils garbanzo beans which are chick peas fava beans and that's an easy way to get uh beets into your diet people love beets um i mean you can do beyond you know just um having them as a side dish uh one of the popular things now to do with the steamed red beets is to put them in the smoothies because they're sweet for a vegetable um they add obviously a lot of red color so be careful working with them just like the pomegranates it's just one of those stainers there but you put it in your blender with some of your other favorite fruits um especially like citrus um even bananas uh and kiwi and it makes a great juice or a smoothie oh there we go i like this alan loves them and they come in molisa's has them in the golden beets and the red beets and we use both uh all we alternate for salads that's what we use them for too is salads yeah salads so we put they i mean you can do a beet salad or you can just add them into your regular leafy green salad and they just add us just a little special something it's sort of like when you put pomegranates in there it's um just something special but beets it i agree beets are are wonderful and necessary and molises makes it really easy those packages are fabulous and they last a long time so look for those now how are the grapes diva Linda very sweet and lovely i've noticed i maybe it's because i've eaten in Canada for a while but um some grapes i don't know why maybe robert can tell us the thin the skin seems to be thicker than i remember before um and i don't think you care for that i for a thin a thinner skin but these are um my point is these are lovely they're muscato right muscato grapes correct yeah molises is known for their muscato grapes we do them in red green and also black we are just getting over the peak of the season um of the table grapes that are that are coming out of the central valley in california um present Delano to Fresno area there if you're familiar with that area there they grow more grapes than anywhere out table grapes than anywhere else in the united states um we are now getting into uh our late summer and fall varieties um as the sheets continues to you know we're still having heat waves here in california it may make the skin a little bit thicker but one thing's for sure when you bite into these table grapes they are super sweet and um one of the varieties that is known for this time of the year because now we're in the fall season are the our autumn harvest uh molises grapes at this time they are they are a red skin variety and they will be available so our table grape season typically was mainly mainly summer but because of the consumer demand for uh increased volumes of domestic uh we've had growers in the central valley of california uh grow late season variety so those season that those grapes are just coming off so the autumn harvest grapes are the ones that are now available you might even see some of these other spectacular varieties like moon drop even cotton candy are still available and these are super sweet varieties the moon drop are dark and they're actually uh long uh not old not round not oval but actually long and that's where they're called a moon drop and they're super sweet and delicious the cotton candy grapes are probably one of the most known sweetest varieties that taste like cotton candy it's one of the it's one of the varieties that molises had introduced into the marketplace uh first back when about eight years ago we're getting to the tail end season of those but you're going to see some spectacular fall grapes and the good thing is is that they're seedless they do have a thinner skin but when things consistent they taste like summer sweet grapes and that's why the grape season's um so popular uh all the way through fall now so look for them all the way until like november hmm this is great i like this because you know you want those little snacks and i love them year-round personally because in the even in the summer if you're in a hot place i've put them in the freezer because then you've got like a nice frozen treat and you can put it in your drinks and all that kind of stuff and but grapes are like you can just grab them and eat if you're like you need those little munchies and then you don't have to feel you know guilty i think molises does an amazing job on healthy snacks that taste good and you don't have to feel guilty i don't want to feel guilty i don't want that i want to feel healthy and happy so we've got all these amazing you know fruits and everything but let's talk about squash because you were talking about cotton candy i'm in the pink squash that is super exciting to have pink squash but when does it come out because it's not quite there yet right the season is just about to begin you're talking about the pink pumpkins pumpkin is a variety of squash and it's not only ornamental for Halloween but pumpkins are also edible as well and the season is about to start the season starts in late september goes through all of of october up until about halloween and we actually use it as a breast cancer awareness fundraiser for every pink pumpkin that we sell for cenage goes to fundraising for breast cancer research that seems to be the time every late september early october is like breast cancer awareness month you'll see a lot of the grocery store items with the pink bow on there and so we've done that even in the produce department and this will be like the eighth year we have these pink pumpkins yes they are hard to find but at the end of september ask your local produce department if they're going to carry these pink pumpkins that you can either enjoy edible as you would a regular squash or just use it for halloween many people like ornamental pumpkins for halloween and believe it or not the skin is entirely pink wow wow i i find that excited you know when you think about all these different ways of having things and then you're actually getting into squash season right it winter squash starts in the fall right a little bit correct um so throughout the year there's usually four varieties that you can find on a year-round basis a butternut the acorn the kabocha and the spaghetti however now that we're in the fall season we'll have over a dozen different varieties of squash because it's the peak of the season not only have they're grown in the central valley in Fresno california but they're grown in michigan so this is a united states are really big on all these different varieties of witcher squash other varieties like delicata sweet dumpling my favorite is actually a newer variety and my favorite was the butternut squash however there's a newer variety in the last few years that Melissa's introduced it's it's much smaller it's about it's almost single serving size maybe about one for one to two people and they're called honey nuts the honey nut squash is a it's about half the size of a butternut and has a lot of similarities one thing i like about squash are the sweeter ones and i find that the but the butternut varieties very sweet but if you like a super sweet variety the honey nuts and it's so easy to work with you cut it in half you could either microwave it or bake it drizzle a little bit of honey on there you don't have to use heavily a lot of people like to use a lot of butter on squash you don't need to i'd like putting honey on top of my squash and enjoy it it almost it almost tastes like pumpkin pie it's so delicious there and uh yeah so we're getting into fall seasons a whole new variety of party fruits and vegetables and squash is just one of them and the potatoes right diva Linda we love the the baby potatoes don't don't especially you know what do you traveling on a boat i want the little ones as a traveler right that's just i know we've got a little bit of a different lifestyle than most but don't you find those even just like for entertaining they just look good i don't want to don't peel them just you know and they clean really quick um i find them easy to make if you have you know someone coming over for dinner right oh they're wonderful they're absolutely what they're easy to work with um much easier actually than a regular russet potato i like the gold ones in particular but when i but uh sometime during the season i will go and buy a bag of the ones that are mixed up so they're red and purple love that that's a lovely taste when you uh we fry them often um fold not chop them up and um they taste just great and i don't know it's just easy to eat i guess and you don't need to do as Robert says kill them with lots of stuff floating peppers pretty good on them um and uh you don't need to add sour cream and chives and butter and all that kind of stuff they're just they're buttery all in themselves so um you know i really suggest that people get their card in the supermarket go slowly through the produce section and look for the Melissa's items and if you can't see them ask your grocer because sometimes they're there you're just you know they're just sometimes they're just so much that you really can't see it once you recognize the logo the Melissa's logo you can um look for the carrot look for the golden carrot everybody yes there you go then then it's much easier to identify what you're what you're doing but um it's always quality and i think that's real important anything you get from Melissa's is quality and if you don't know what to do with it whatever it is beets pomegranates persimmons grapes whatever you can go to the Melissa's um website and there's tons of recipes that are sorted by the type of produce that you're looking at so if you're if you're wanting to figure out what to do with the golden potatoes dutch dutch maybe potatoes you can just put that in the search bar even it's so easy and epic comes and underneath are all the recipes and it's with that website is such a wonderful source and if you forget you know what do you do with how do you get into a into a pomegranate without you know you're squirt all over you or whatever you know all that information is there i don't know who put your website together but i know it's updated all the time uh-huh it's not it's not a static one it's yeah all the time and of course just to tell you that if you want to give something different for christmas you really ought to look at uh there i'm sure there are christmas packages baskets wine all that stuff will be coming up pretty soon and it's just all you have to do is click on it and then they send it for you and people just love it love it love it so um that's my suggestion i agree with you um every time you go on there there's something new and now i'm thinking about these potatoes like i i use well what i used to do is slice them in half you know and roast them in a like a tin foil packet so that's i haven't done any roasting for a while it's been warm and i've been in warm climates and so what i do though is i'll boil them a little bit and then make like um a potato salad but sometimes i even fry them up like you're saying so i've kept it you know but now we're getting into that season where i'm going to make those i make hot pockets in the oven and then well goes quicker too so if if you're in the hot climate you can do it no mess either because then i just look at them all about no mess right and so you could put in like portabello mushrooms and things like that in with the potatoes and garlic oh gotta put the garlic you must you just have to have the garlic and especially in october you all need garlic man you never know what's coming out of there you know coming out the shadows at this time and you know it's just and it's good for you and healthy um before i forget i want to hear about these chocolate persimmons Linda tell tell did you have chocolate and and think it's healthy now it's healthy because it's a fruit healthy fruit yeah well i don't know they taste like chocolate but it looks like chocolate persimmons are one of those interesting fruits that you have to make sure they're ripe before you eat them they're they taste better they feel better their the mouth feel is better and of course the ones that you just sent me were just oh they're just fabulous and i didn't really understand persimmons they should for me they should be cold and right and you cut them up and you serve them just like you serve grapes or anything i was put them in a bowl and let people pick them up in quarters they're wonderful they're and most people will say oh it's a peach or anectarine when they're right a peach or anectarine and oh wow i've never done it right either then i don't know if that's true i you could peel them or not peel them just depends on how much time you have right you can eat that you can eat the out of one thing if you want or not and just make sure they're ripe but a persimmon can be so delicious it's bad how many types of persimmons are they right Robert well there's actually two main varieties of persimmons so i'm going to break it down so the hachiya variety is the larger heart shaped variety and then there's the fuyu variety which looks like a flat kind of a more of a flat tomato now the hachiya's you you definitely want to make sure that they're soft and gushy and that's that's how they're enjoyed all right they kind of resemble you know they have that fall flavor kind of squashy sweet it's very different than another fruit it doesn't taste like a peach or anything like that they are orange in color but the variety that just came into season first are the chocolate persimmons they're not chocolatey and flavorful when you cut them open they're brownish chocolatey on the inside that's in the fuyu variety so those are going to be a little bit more firm and what i like to do with them is i like to cut them into slices likes like apple slices and they pair very well with a hard cheese so if you like carrying cheese and fruit together this is one of those fruits that seems to be popular on the chakuta rewards or fruit boards and platters that people love doing um so uh usually the season starts in september on persimmons and it typically goes until the uh early wintertime january and february the biggest domestic season actually believe or not comes out of california grown in the uh northern california and central california um and um they are what is what i would consider a very much a fall fruit and um they're orange in color and uh you know depending on you like soft and gushy versus more of a firmer texture on the fuyu flat tomato varieties uh you know there's two different main varieties there um depending on you feel like a really ripe uh variety or a firmer variety that you can join slices it's really up to you people like making smoothies shakes or even juicing it um this is a this is a favorite fruit grown in people's backyards especially throughout california there um and uh uh my favorite variety comes up in october and write this one down it's called the cinnamon persimmon and it's the reason why it's called the cinnamon persimmon is not that it tastes like cinnamon but when you cut it it has little specks of brown their little brown sugar pockets they look like you know like you put cinnamon on top of fruit but the flavors um hands down that is my favorite variety and that again that season will start up in um early to mid october uh for that particular variety. Wow wow that's a lot of good stuff happening and you know people are going to be eating good this fall if you go to molistas and so can people still order from your website if they cannot get their grocery store to get get with the get on the molises train definitely definitely um if you can't find molises produce in particular of any of the items that we're talking about I first recommend talking to your produce manager because we're aligned with most stores across the country so you just have to tell them that you know I heard about pomegranates or persimmons or these Dutch potatoes um and they can order them for you yes you can always go on to molises.com and order it there the only difference is there is you have to pay for shipping so you're going to be being more from our website because of the shipping but like I said the trick is talk to your produce manager and they will um bring the products in for you of the many varieties that we're talking about right now and and also I mean if you're going to order online it could be a great gift as well you know I think you know when people moving into a new home I think this is such a great welcome gift for someone moving into a new place so like here's some fruit vegetables you can you know put it in a bowl you know it's kind of a nice way of doing something as as again you've got the gift baskets too which are perfect so very good very good are you hungry yet diva linda oh absolutely I still have a few items left I've eaten through that box that you see behind you I have a couple of snack packs left and one pomegranate and one persimmon and that's it so we went right through this thing it's just so good I mean what can I say I just love I love anything from molises I've found anything that I did and I just discovered this also last year in it that's really really good as well so I I have to say every place we go we always look for molises every you know we we go to grocery stores across the country and I have almost all grocery cards like grocery store club cards I do people look and it's like no there's not as many credit cards as there are grocery store cards and I and they're just I don't know it's become a new collection for me but I go in and I look and I'm like yes because there is a difference I'm I have to just say this I'm going back to those potatoes because they're staple right no it I've tried others because if they weren't there I'm like okay well they look similar but let me tell you they're not I'm just saying I'm not being negative about anybody but there is a quality difference do not be fooled there is a major quality difference so when you say your specialty you truly are but those are affordable your food is specialty and I want to make sure people understand that it's affordable you know especially with the some of the staples I'm like the potatoes and things like that people can do that so good stuff we're always fun to have you on the show Robert well thank you for having me here and thank you for really talking up our Dutch potato line but believe it or not Linda and Lisa the Dutch potatoes are our signature item at Melissa's they come in yellow which you referred to as gold they come in red and they come in blue which is also they look kind of purplish there but Linda also mentioned about a mixture of them of them that package is called gemstone and that is a mixture of all the different baby potatoes you know not only are they take shorter tying to cook but basically all you have to do is wash them off there's no reason to skin them because the skin is entirely edible and after you cook them you really don't have to do much with them you don't have to add a lot of cream and stuff you know they're not super starchy and they just make a great side dish to anything that you're cooking with you know any day of the week yes and with garlic of course yeah I find that when I have a dinner party and I serve them some of the people who wouldn't tackle a big baked potato or a half a big potato will take one or two of these and then of course the next thing I know they've taken five or six of them but you want to have at least two of each color yeah it's portion good portion control I will say that for those of you that are watching your weight you don't have to cook a lot of them you can cook three four four at a time ten at a time whatever you want to do it's um and for those that those guests that just don't want big food it's really good for them to try something small like this they usually run right down to the store and then it's become you know lovingly curious about all the stuff that you have especially these potatoes are quite wonderful they make really good like a breakfast hash yeah I'm just I'm just gonna say I know I've done some amazing things with bacon and potatoes and other things that have just been oh let's put that in there and see what happens you know um I want to know do you do garlic's at Melissa's yes we don't we not only do traditional garlic and a colossal garlic we're the company that started doing the peeled garlic over 15 years ago so you can actually find peeled garlic that are individually wrapped in um in like a cryo vac and we make it easier and then we also do jar garlic as well and elephant garlic and black garlic so we're kind of uh we're really known for our garlic as we are for our potatoes and onions and garlic is one of the most essential ingredients in almost every cuisine across the world majority of our garlic actually comes out of California it's another one of those crops you know from Gilroy um California is the largest grove of garlic for all of the United States there um if you cook and you love to cook garlic is probably on the top of your list unless of course you're allergic to it but and you also do turmeric in the ginger root you know and this is that season four soups use that in soups the ginger and the turmeric the turmeric you want fall color I mean turmeric is it and if you add it to stews soups I mean it is and it's so good for us too right so that's the thing is about all of these products we're talking about good for us and healthy I'm hungry now and I'd like some potatoes and garlic and by the way it makes really good potato salad those potatoes and it makes potato making it quicker and easier and I've done it in different ways um and um I'm a big fan so everyone Melissa's dot com also that that link is in the episode notes as well as diva Linda's article um when she sent it in I'm like okay I'm hungry and I'm still hungry now it's worse so thank you both and of course keep up with diva Linda at all in good taste dot info thank you all so much thank you for listening to big blend radio with travel writer Linda Kazam keep up with Linda at all in good taste dot info you can read her articles in big blend magazines and keep up with us at big blend radio dot com
