A few years ago, Hungry Bear and I were shopping at the University District Farmers Market in Seattle where we stumbled upon hardy kiwis (a.k.a. baby kiwis) for the first time. These miniature kiwis are the size of a large grape (about 1 inch long) with an edible, fuzzless skin.

According to CFRG, baby kiwis are native to northern China, Korea, Siberia and Japan. When fully dormant, the vines can withstand temperature drops to -25°F, hence the name hardy kiwis. They vary in color from green to purple. In the States, the growing season starts in June and the fruit is harvested between September and November. That's the short version of the agricultural lesson. I'll spare you the rest.

In addition to seeing them in Seattle, we found hardy kiwis in the Columbus Circle Whole Foods (NYC) and more recently at our local Trader Joe's. We were stoked to find them in San Francisco, even though they were imported from New Zealand. I'd prefer them locally grown, but I couldn't pass up the baby kiwis.

There are a few things I don't do in life and one of them is peel fruit. I attribute this phenomena to my mom spoiling me and always cutting fruit for me (even to this day). Hungry Bear hates this fact and she begrudgingly puts up with my no fruit peeling policy.

Needless to say, I love hardy kiwis. They are sweeter and more flavorful than regular kiwis with a slightly sour skin. They are a great pop-in-your-mouth, healthy snack. And it's the perfect kiwi for us no peeling fruit eaters!

a

We love Trader Joe's. It's our favorite place to pick up staples for the pantry. While the quality of the produce and meat isn't as good as Whole Foods Paycheck or our neighborhood supermarket, the remaining items are just as good or better. And it's definitely the best value among our local grocery stores.

Besides saving us money, we go to TJ's for their unique and interesting products. We loved the Emperor's New Cloves garlic, but sadly they don't carry it anymore because the garlic was grown in China. Anyway, there's always something new to discover at Trader Joe's and I'm constantly on the lookout for them.

My one complaint with TJ's is the overabundance of cookies, chocolate and candies in the aisles. It's so hard not to grab a box of treats with each visit. Damn you TJ, for constantly pushing your sweet crack on me!

Most of the time, I'm strong enough to resist picking up a box of cookies. But there are a few items I never leave without. So, here are a few five of my favorite things...

• Organic Clusters Cereal - a good combination of textures and flavors. Our three favorite cluster cereals are the raisin bran, vanilla almond and maple pecan. The raisin bran is the healthiest one.
• Organic Peanut Butter - by far the best store bought natural peanut butter. You won't go wrong with creamy or crunchy.
• Tempting Trail Mix - it has several types of nuts, dried cherries, peanut butter chips and chocolate chips! Salty, crunchy, chewy and sweet... yum!
• Cinnamon Swirl Bread - a thick wheat bread full of cinnamon. You can make a great open face peanut butter, banana and honey sandwich with it.
• Cheap, Interesting Wine - we can always find inexpensive, but good, wine at TJ's. From the slideshow, the question mark wine is a 2005 red table wine from Oreana Winery. The happy face wine is a 2005 syrah from Project Happiness. We have no idea if the wines are good, but we couldn't pass up the labels.

That's my top 5 list. If you shop at Trader Joe's, what are your favorite things? I would love to know.

a

We love garlic and use it in just about every savory dish we make. We also cook in mass quantities and I always dread peeling the garlic. I hate it when my fingers get sticky from the garlic juice and the skins stick to my finger. It's not a difficult task. It's just mundane.

We recently discovered Trader Joe's The Emperor's New Cloves — one clove per head garlic. It's super easy to peel and doesn't have a sticky skin. I'm guesstimating one clove of this garlic is about five to six normal cloves of garlic. It's sold in a little wicker basket and contains six heads of garlic for $1.69.

As far as taste, it's a little milder than white-bulb American garlic. And it's perfect for roasting. It's so much easier and better than roasting normal heads of garlic. You don't have to deal with all the skin, squeezing and mess. The roasted one clove per head garlic is just one big lump of sweet, mellow garlic!

To roast the garlic, drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Wrap it in aluminum foil, place the heads in a muffin pan, and bake at 375°F for 40-45 minutes, or until the cloves are soft.

I'll never go back to roasting normal heads of garlic again. Trader Joe's The Emperor's New Cloves completely rock!

Update Jan 25th, 2008: I contacted Trader Joe's and asked them what the garlic varietal is. They didn't answer my question, but I did get this response...

Chuck,

We appreciate your feedback and inquiry. Here is some direct information from our supplier about this special garlic.

In every harvest season, amongst thousands and thousands of garlic bulbs grown, very few garlic bulbs are produced with only one clove by mother nature and no one knows why and how!

Since one needs to plant one clove to get a garlic bulb, there is no logical and economical justification to plant one clove and still get one clove back after 9 months. That is why there is not even the possibility of attempting to intentionally grow this type of garlic.

Therefore, due to its scarcity, it was always gifted to and consumed by the kings and emperor's of different dynasties through out the Chinese history. To the best of our knowledge, there is no difference in taste with other garlic types with many cloves (the usual multi-clove garlic).

Sincerely,
Amy Trader Joe's
Customer Relations

After a little research, we discovered that single clove garlic is often referred to as garlic rounds and even garlic onions. Via Gourmet Garlic Gardens...

"...garlic rounds. As garlic goes through the development underground from a clove to a fully cloved bulb, it first swells into a large round undivided ball with a lot of wrappers that are almost fused together. As it grows, it begins to divide and sub-divide into as many cloves as it can before the heat causes it to lose its leaves. If the temperature increases before the garlic has time to divide, then the result is a large undivided round. Every time we harvest we find some of them. If replanted as is in the fall, they will form large fully divided bulbs the following spring. These rounds have the same taste and other properties as the clove they came from. Mild tasting garlics yield mild tasting rounds and strong garlics result in strong tasting rounds. For spring planting, rounds are your best bet to produce a good size bulb by the time early summer heat forces maturity."

If you are really interested in single clove garlic, check out this interesting discussion.

Update Jan 30th, 2008: I visited my local Trader Joe's this morning and sadly they're no longer stocking The Emperor's New Cloves garlic. The garlic is grown in China and after talking to several employees, they told me that Trader Joe's is no longer carrying products grown in China, due to customer concerns.

I asked them if they would stock the single clove garlic again if they found a non-Chinese supplier. And their answer was most likely. I'm a little bummed out because I love the product. I'm going to contact Trader Joe's and ask them to find another supplier ASAP. If you also like the single clove garlic, send Trader Joe's a request to bring it back.

a

The Serramonte Farmers' Market in Daly City is one our favorite markets in the Bay Area. We like the Serramonte market because it's relatively small but has a good selection of vendors and plenty of parking. The market can get busy, but it's never a mob scene like other markets in the area. The farmers' market is not a tourist attraction and has a more homey feel, where the locals do their everyday shopping. That's the primary reason Hungry Bear goes there on a regular basis.

We took a trip down to the market this past Thursday and returned with a bounty of fruit and food. Hungry Bear has had a regular strawberry vendor for the last several years, but tried a new one several weeks ago. After tasting the strawberries from several vendors, we have decided to switch to the new one, Rodriguez Farms, for the foreseeable future. Their organic strawberries were the sweetest and juiciest.

This past Thursday, the mountain grown blueberries from Rainbow Orchard were very delicious. Likewise, the apricots from CMC Farms were quite good. We also picked up some chicken and beef piroshkies. We enjoyed the piroshkies (Russian meat filled pastries) but since this was our first time trying piroshkies, we have no basis for comparison. Another new find was the purple Thai chili peppers. I've had red and green chilies, but I had never seen purple ones.

A popular vendor at the Serramonte market is Roli Roti Gourmet Rotisserie. You can't miss this stall. Just follow the wonderful aroma of rotisserie chicken to his stand. He also had rotisserie pork knuckles on Thursday. It looked really good with sizzling pork fat dripping down from each knuckle. I had to pass on getting it because we just had BBQ flank steak the previous day... next time!

Another busy vendor is Gold Rush Kettle Korn, which is next to Roli Roti. We have never tried his kettle corn but there's always a line of people waiting. If nothing else, it's interesting to watch the kettle corn making process.

No shopping trip is complete until something chocolate is purchased. We achieved this goal by getting a big chocolate brownie that was shaped like a muffin. The brownie was good, but I could have used a little more chocolate flavor. As always, it was another successful shopping trip at the Serramonte Farmers' Market.

Location & Hours:
Serramonte Mall Parking Lot
3 Serramonte Center
Daly City, CA 94016
Thursdays & Saturdays 9:00 am - 1:00 pm
Map It

a