What a difference in perspective you gain from seeing where fruit comes from 1st hand. I’ve been to the Farmer’s Markets a million times but still didn’t gather all that goes into the care and growth of the fruits or vegetables.  You sort of take things for granted when it is packaged and sold at your local convenient store or Supermarket.

I was recently invited on an adventure for ‘the citrus lover’ up to Ojai to get a first taste/tour of their exclusive “Pixie Tangerines” (they will be in the markets starting March 10th).  In accepting this invitation I was able to walk the farms where the citrus is grown and learn all types of interesting facts along the way.  Did you know that the tangerines get their color when the temperature drops at night and the weather turns cold????  I didn’t.  Like most Americans  I like seedless fruit and most of the citrus we sampled was seedless including the tangerines.  Nothing prepared me for the exquisite taste of these tangerines…..  I called them “jewels for the mouth” a burst of candied citrus tangy-ness with hints of berries and honey…… the PERFECT specimen.

First stop: Friend’s Orchards … this is a Father daughter team ran by Tony and Emily Thatcher.  In addition to the delicious Pixie tangerines they grow, they also produce some of the BEST tasting ‘W. Murcotts’ I’ve ever known.  Here are some pictures of their orchard.

Next stop: Churchill & Brennis Orchards….. Jim Churchill and Lisa Brennis , a husband and wife duo.  Their orchard has been CCOF- Certified Organic since 2007.  They have many acres of pixie tangerine trees and also produce the cute sweet little “Kishu”, look for it… only in season for a few more weeks.  A little photo diary of our visit.

From L to R: Me, Ericka of Nibbles and Feasts, Dorothy of Shockingly Delicious, Nancy of A Communal Table, and Priscilla of She’s Cookin.

The great news is you don’t need to go all the way to Ojai to get your mitts on these citrus gems, Melissa’s Produce will be bringing them to you.  Keep an eye out for this packaging….. when you see it grab away!

 Photo Credit: Group photo taken by Robert Schueller.  Photo of me by tangerine tree taken by Nancy Buchanan. All other photos taken by Nicole Presley.

Disclosure: This is not a sponsored or compensated post.

I don’t remember the year exactly…. It might have have been 1991 or 1992, the Pixies were playing a private show for Halloween here in Los Angeles at a club that was called 1970’s on Highland.  I found out about it because KROQ was giving away  tickets to listeners. Like many, I tried winning some but my phone was never the 106th caller.  Turns out, at the last minute a family friend of a friend knew somebody at the club and I was able to get into the show.  Due to overcrowding and my moxie, I ended up sitting on top of Kim’s amp as she played the show.  It wasn’t like I just jumped up there right before the show started, I was being smashed on the stairwell and made eye contact with her.  I motioned to her with a sad face if I could sit on her amp and she said “yes.”  Fast forward 20 years and who would have thought I would be talking with Kim about frijoles and tortillas?

She is an L.A. resident (temporary) these days and living not too far from me, so we met at her place.  Kim Deal is a busy gal with a full calendar, in a little over a month she will embark on a Pixies US tour called ‘Lost Cities’ performing the classic ‘Doolittle’ album.  She is also in the studio making new music for her own band.  Kim has been hailed as one of rocks most influential musicians by critics and fans alike.  She was also titled the “coolest person in the world” by the Washington Post.  She is one of the most down to earth individuals with a heart of gold.  Her voice has the strength to pull you in and never let go.  Her songwriting with The Breeders is flawless….. but enough about all that music- jazz, let’s talk to Kim about her thoughts on food!

Me: When you’re home in Dayton, do you grow your own vegetable garden?

Kim: When I’m actually home in Dayton.  Now I’m going to say what regularly happens because this year was a little different…. I was gone.  Tomatoes are a big thing for me.  Home grown tomatoes.  You know the past couple of years they haven’t done well.  They haven’t turned red…. it’s a very weird thing.  They’re OHIO tomatoes, there’s just no talking about it.  We have VERY GOOD tomatoes.  Early Girls are what I like to plant so they come out first.  Then the beefsteaks,  I love those.  But their are all sorts of varieties with the cutest names.  For me the more citric acid in a tomato the better, and I like to salt them.  I put a lot of salt.  Some people like black pepper on them but I don’t.  Kelley likes black pepper.  I can obsess over tomatoes, especially the beefsteak.

Me: You’ve traveled all around the world. What is your favorite food city?

Kim: Tel Aviv.  Now they have ful medames over there.  It’s made with fava beans, garlic, lemon juice and oil.  I’m from Huber Heights, Ohio it’s a suburb of Dayton.  Think of how small that is?  The sign reads 30,000 happy people.  It’s the biggest community of brick homes.  So when I moved to Boston, I tried hummus and had no idea what it was.  It was delicious, I loved it but I had never heard of any of this stuff.  Then I went to the Middle East Cafe in Cambridge, Massachusetts.  I walk in and they got this menu I start ordering, and I ordered the ful medames. OH MY GOD, IT’S SO GOOD, and all the delicious salads there.  So I begin loving these flavors.  Then I go to Tel Aviv for the first time, and I was in heaven.  Everything was so delicious.  I can’t even explain it.  I mean you could describe a dish by saying “it was so good” “Oh I like it” …. that’s all I could do.  Everything was so fresh and delicious.  I love Ful.  I love Middle Eastern food.  I love Tel Aviv.

Me: Well this question ties in with your last answer. What’s your ideal meal? If you could have ANYTHING you want…. What is it?

Kim: Mexican!  (She burst into a happy laughter)  After saying all that about Tel Aviv, now I’m saying I love Mexican food.  No, I want Mexican.  I love Mexican food and always have.  I mean I worked at Taco Bell when I was in high school as my first job.  It was the first time I ever even thought of anything called Mexican food.  You didn’t use to go out in the mid-west and get Mexican food.  There was no Taco Bell.  There were BURGERS!  I don’t even think Mexican food had hit America yet.  I remember working at Taco Bell, before it was owned by Pepsi, and everything we served was fresh.  I once served a bug from the lettuce in someone’s food because the produce came straight from the farm.  I was like “I’m sorry.”  We would grate our own cheddar cheese.  We would make the beans and meat in the back.  It was delicious.  I mean it wasn’t the Mexican food where you ground up the corn in a molcajete to make your own tortillas.  It wasn’t that for god-sakes, that’s, oh my goodness.  If I could as an ideal meal it would be tamales, enchiladas in a verde sauce not too spicy, with beans and cheese, and sour cream.  Oh I want fresh hot tortillas with some creamy guacamole and beautiful salsa. Mmmmm.

Me: When you cook or you get a hankering for cooking, what is your specialty?

Kim: I feel my specialty is opening cans.  I stumbled into something this past summer. Kelley has been saying she is trying to feed her inner body and not her inner child.  So I’ve been trying to feed my body and not my inner child.  I’ve stumbled on this thing that I cook in a skillet.  Cut veggies with a little bit of olive oil, then I add some chicken and artichokes, and right before it’s done I add spinach for it to wilt a little.  I like my eggs too.  I think I do a good egg and that’s a good stand-by food when I’m in Japan. Sometimes the menu can get scary there with fish-heads on it.

Me: What is your guilty food pleasure?

Kim: CHOCOLATE.  Everything gets TRUMPED by chocolate.  Dark.  Delicious.  Tobacco Chocolate.

Me: Who’s house do you secretly wish to be invited to for dinner?

Kim: Either Martha Stewart or Paula Deen.  Who ever is not having fish that evening. Even though I bet Martha does a good fish.  I bet Martha has all the fresh gorgeous good ingredients too.

Me: Yeah…. she has a farm.

Kim: Yeah Paula Deen probably would have too much sausage.  She would have a lot of cream.  Probably be HEAVY.  Martha Stewart.

Me: What’s a ‘must have’ backstage?

Kim: NOT AQUAFINA! NOT DISANI! I like Evian water.  Also right now when I go back there,  Fruits.  You know what’s strange, it seems like the only time I could get good vegetables, even in my life is when we go on tour, and we ask for vegetables back stage. Partly because they are all done in crudites.  Sliced up.  Once in a while they are no good because they bought the plastic container of cut veggies.  I like to have good vegetables and fruit backstage.  BUT the must have is the water, and non-alcoholic beer.  It’s like a baby bottle.  My favorite non-alcoholic beer is Beck’s, St. Pauli Girl, and Clausthaler. Those are my 3 favorites.

Me: What dessert puts a smile on your face?

Kim: I can do cheesecakes.  Oh my god!  You brought over those fucken Sprinkles cupcakes that time.  I was obsessed for those Nicole, for like a year.  I made my friend Cheryl from Los Angeles take Sprinkles Cupcakes to Ohio with her at the beginning of the summer.  I MADE her take them for my birthday.  She took a dozen I think.  It was like I was a bulimic.  I’m obsessed with those cupcakes and I had them in my room and I wasn’t sharing them with anybody.  My friend Kyle asked for one and I told him “NO.”                    I remember calling Sprinkles last year, just sitting there thinking “I wonder if they deliver?”  I called them up and asked “Can you  deliver to Ohio?”  Sprinkles lady said “No, we don’t deliver we just do dry packaging, I could send you that.”  I said “No, that’s okay.”  Then I told her “Sometimes I just sit around and think of Sprinkles Cupcakes.” She said “I think that’s one of the nicest compliments we’ve ever gotten.”                                                The RED VELVET is my favorite.                                                                                     You know who else has a dessert worthy of a smile?  Dayton has this little Dorothy Lane market that has these cookies.  They’re called Laura’s cookies.  It’s just a sugar cookie that is so darn good, and they cut them according to the season.  Flowers for spring, pumpkins for Halloween.                                                                                                 Cheesecake, Sprinkles Cupcakes, and Laura’s Sugar cookies.

Me: I hear from an excellent source that your mom is a stand out cook. What’s your favorite dish that she makes?

Kim: I don’t think she actually was a good cook, but she makes good hillbilly food.  Well my parents are from Appalachia.  So my mom will make a delicious spaghetti, you know she’ll take the pork loin or whatever.  Fry it in the bottom of a big pot till it browns.  Then she’ll add tomatoes and tomato paste.  There’s nothing in it really though.  I guess the Italians call it gravy, you know I’m use to seeing spaghetti sauce with green peppers and mushrooms the way you see it in a jar.  The way my mom makes it, she said the girl from Tali Hill taught her.  My parents lived on Tater Hallow…. Tater Holler is Potato Hallow.  She got the recipe from some lady in Tali Hill which is Italian Hill.  There’s no chunks in it or anything.  It’s just gravy.

Me: So that’s your favorite dish your mom makes is this spaghetti?

Kim: No…. Probably not.  I like her coleslaw and potato salad.  Sometimes there are pieces of fat on the pork and that grosses me out.  If she got rid of the pork pieces, but still cooked it with pork then I would like it.  What else?  She makes a good meatloaf.  Oh her cornbread!  My parents will take a big tall glass and fill it up with cornbread, then pour buttermilk over the top and swish it up then take a spoon to it.  To them that is just heaven.  I mean they will argue for days who makes better sausage gravy and bisquits.  My mom ruled with the gravy.  But when they got it wrong you should hear them (her voice goes wobbly to imitate her parents bicker) “You should have used more flour!”

Me: Do you like bacon?

Kim: Well I like bacon.  I like it crispy like when I go to Cracker Barrel or some place like that.  Evidently you are not suppose to go to Cracker Barrel because they don’t have a kind policy towards hiring gay people.  Chris Glass told me that.

Me: Black beans, Coffee beans, bean and cheese burritos… Seems like you are a closeted beaner?

Kim: Yeah, I love them.  Black beans I love them , it’s true.  I love lentils.  I have a can of progresso lentils right over there.  That’s a great dish my dad makes…. a big pot of pinto beans.  Again as long as they don’t have too much pork in them.  You know guys, they cram everything with meat.  It’s so gross.  But if he could back off,  my dad could make the best pot of pork and beans.  He told me a story the other day about cheek meat… he called it “jowel meat.”  He said they were so poor, that’s what he lived on once.  You know him and my mom will have these who can ‘out-poor’ eachother stories.  My mom always wins by the way, and dad gives it to her, because she wins.  We are talking newspaper on the inside of the wall as a heat source.  There was no refrigeration, they would put their milk in the cold creek.  They would have to go outside to get the milk.  He told me how they lived for a week off of jowel meat and pinto beans and some sort of bread product because they were poor, eating off the jowel meat.

Me: You lived in East Los Angeles for a couple of years. What did you like to eat there?

Kim: Guacamole.  I’ll tell you what was good in East Los… skirt steak-carne asada.  Also my friend Alex’s family would fry up carnitas in a big copper pot.  That was delicious. Home made meals out of people’s homes were fucken good.  Carnitas was my favorite.

Me: Are you annoyed with people obsessed with food?

Kim: I’m so not a foodie.  I’M NOT!  You know I’ll get in a Pixies tour bus and I will just want to shoot myself in the face.  The guys are talking about what they just ate, what they are going to eat,  and the meal they had yesterday.  That’s all they do is talk about food. IT’S THE WHOLE TOUR!  It’s the only conversation in the bus.  It’s the only conversation.  Joe is a huge foodie.  David loves food.  I mean we roll into a town and the tour manager, Joe, David and even Charles will be planned out.  They are the types that talk about what’s good to eat in each city.  If they’ve heard of a restaurant, they’ll have to go there.  Joe will even eat cheek meat, brains….stuff like that.  They adore it.  They don’t entertain me with tales of food, it’s just them yammering away.  I could get an omelette with cheese and a side green salad, and I’m good.

* Pixies tour starts Oct 27th and goes through Nov. 21st. Buy tickets here!

Photo taken by: Mando Lopez