IN FRUIT
There are just a plethora of fruit options this week. All peaches and nectarines are at their absolute peak for flavour, quality and price. Choosing one of these was difficult but my pick this week is white nectarines, which have come on slightly earlier than normal, but it is fantastic fruit. Grapes are now at their best and my favourite sweet little sultana grapes are available again. Seedless watermelon, now from NSW, is as good and cheap as it gets. Figs, loose, in punnets or by the tray are now in full swing. Passionfruit and limes are good value and by the weekend we will have all Australian lemons back in store. Amber Jewel plums start this week, these are better eating than any others we have had to date this year. By the weekend we will have our exclusive Silky mangoes in our stores, if you haven’t tried these they are really worth a go.
IN VEGETABLES
The very hot weather has, as normal, damaged the very heat sensitive lines such as radish (the leaves only, the part you eat is fine), coriander and English spinach, which are always the first to suffer. However by and large quality is still good and prices reasonable. There are bargains to be had in potatoes, prepack carrots and cauliflowers in particular, which have halved in price this week. Broccoli has dropped by 30 percent, lettuce is inexpensive and corn remains very good value. We have superb quality tomatoes from New Zealand and snow peas and beans have stood up to the heat extremely well. In the case of beans, we now source them from Tasmania in these hot months as our traditional mainland farm areas just get hotter and hotter. After being very expensive, we now have some very attractively priced kumera in store this week.
