The new Half & Half champion. Photo courtesy Red Jacket Orchards.

Arnold Palmer, make way for Joe Nicholson: There’s a new tea and lemonade blend in town.

In a Palm Springs country club in the the 1960s, with his order of a glass of half lemonade—a drink he mixed at home—golf legend Arnold Palmer established the soft drink that bears his name. Others who overheard him said “I’ll have what he’s having,” and Arnold Palmer, the drink, has been popular ever since.

Manufacturers and restaurants have created their spin on the drink, also called a Half & Half. But no one has done it better than Red Jacket Orchards, which debuted Joe’s Half & Half this month.

Named for company founder Joe Nicholson, the drink fuses the company’s NY Style Lemonade with guayusa tea, a NIBBLE favorite.

Available in 12-ounce (individual) and 32-ounce bottles, Joe’s Half & Half is a new favorite of ours, for sure. Thanks, Joe!

Discover more at RedJacketOrchards.com. You can also send someone a gift of the Cold Pressed Juice Of The Month Club.
  

Here’s what’s in season for Spring. Not everything may be available in your area, but what is there should be domestic—not imported from overseas.

Some of the items are harvested for only a few weeks; others are around for a while.

So peruse the list, note what you don’t want to miss out on, and add to your shopping list.

The list was created by Produce for Better Health Foundation. Take a look at their website, FruitsAndVeggiesMoreMatters.org for tips on better meal planning with fresh produce.

> The year’s 80 fruit holidays.

The year’s 60+ vegetable holidays.
 
 
SPRING FRUITS

 
 
SPRING VEGETABLES

 

[5] Red sorrel is a hardy, leafy herb that you can grow at home. It has a bright, tart flavor with grassy undertones and tangy notes similar to lemon or sour apple. Use it raw in salads or as a garnish, or cooked as a leafy green vegetable like spinach. Add them to casseroles, marinades, omelets, sauces (including purés), soups, or stir-fries (creamed of sorrel soup is a real treat. Its flavor pairs well with cheese, cream, eggs, potatoes, sour cream, whole grains, and yogurt. Also use it with veal and fish, especially smoked or oily fish like salmon and mackerel.

[1] It’s jackfruit, and it’s in season. You’re most likely to find it at Asian markets. Jackfruit is the largest tree fruit, reaching as much as 120 pounds in weight, 35 inches in length, 20 inches in diameter. It has become more prominent over the last few years as a meaty substitute for vegetarians and vegans. Here’s more about it (photo by August Binu | CC-BY-SA-3).

[2] Cherimoya, often called the custard apple, is the fruit of a tropical evergreen tree. The fruit is heart-shaped, with a creamy texture and a flavor blending pineapple, banana, and strawberry. The fruit is eaten fresh or used in desserts (but its seeds, leaves, and limbs are toxic and should not be ingested).

[3] Butterhead lettuce. Popular varieties include Bibb (Limestone), Boston, Buttercrunch, Mignonette (Manoa) and Tom Thumb. Check out the different types of lettuce (Abacus Photo).

[4] Cardoons look like celery, but they’re not related. They’re actually a close relative of the artichoke, and have an artichoke-like flavor, rather than a celery-like taste. .

CHECK OUT WHAT’S HAPPENING ON OUR HOME PAGE, THENIBBLE.COM.

Scafata is a dish from the Umbria region of Italy, typically made with spring vegetables such as artichokes, escarole, fava beans, green (English) peas, and Swiss chard, and flavored with basil, mint, and often, guanciale (bacon made from the jowl of the pig). They inspire this recipe for spring salad with prosciutto.

We’ve adapted a recipe from ParmaCrown.com into a spring vegetable salad with prosciutto (Parma ham). In our version, you can:

 
The difference between prosciutto and serrano ham is below.
 
 
RECIPE: SPRING SALAD WITH PROSCIUTTO

Ingredients For 4 Servings

For The Cooked Version

 
For The Raw Version

 
Vegetables For Both Versions

 
Toppings

Preparation

For The Cooked Salad

1a. COMBINE the wine, oil, and onion in a large skillet; cover and bring to boil over medium-high heat. Add the zucchini, snow peas, peas, artichokes, asparagus, salt, and pepper. Reduce heat, simmer partly covered about 5 minutes, stirring frequently until vegetables are al dente (or, if you prefer, tender).

For The Raw Salad

1b. MAKE the vinaigrette: Whisk the oil and vinegar with salt and pepper to taste. A pinch of dry mustard helps keep the emulsion from separating. Toss the vegetables in vinaigrette just to moisten. Place the remaining vinaigrette in a small pitcher for those who would like more.
For Either Salad

2. POACH the eggs. Divide the vegetables among four plates. Top each with two slices of prosciutto di Parma and an egg. Garnish with chopped fresh mint, if desired.
 
 
PROSCIUTTO & SERRANO HAMS: THE DIFFERENCES

Both prosciutto and Serrano hams are dry-cured: salted and hung in sheds to cure in the air. Both are served in very thin slices. Country ham, preferred in the U.S., is smoked, and a very different style from dry-cured hams.

While prosciutto and Serrano hams can be used interchangeably, they are different.

Italian-made prosciutto is never made with nitrates. American made prosciutto, as well as both domestic and Spanish Serrano-style hams, can have added nitrates.

 
MORE

 
 
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*If serving the salad raw or blanched, substitute 1/2 cup green onions, cut into 1/2-inch pieces, for the cooked onion.
 
 
†The artichokes should be plain, not marinated.

[2] Prosciutto, Italian ham, is always thinly sliced (photo © Consorzio di Prosciutto di Parma).

[3] Spring peas, also known as English peas and green peas, are part of our spring salad (photo © Maude Restaurant | Los Angeles).

[4] Snow peas, popular in Chinese cuisine, are finding their way into more non-Asian dishes (photo © Burpee).

[5] Prosciutto in the making: hams hanging to cure in the air.

[6] Air-cured and delicious (photo © )

Built in 1934 to transport goods through Manhattan, the High Line ran from 34th Street to Spring Street in SoHo. The elevated tracks were built through the center of blocks, rather than over the avenue.

By 1980, interstate trucking was the preferred mode of commercial transportation, and the trains ceased to run. Over time, the tracks covered with wild vegetation. Property owners wanted the tracks torn down.

In 1999, two neighborhood residents began to advocate for the High Line’s preservation and reuse as public open space. The first part of the renovation opened to the public in 2009 and it is now complete—and magnificent.

The High Line is part of the renaissance of the far west side of Chelsea, long a bleak industrial area. A decade ago, art galleries priced out of other neighborhoods led the gentrification, followed by boutique hotels.

One of Death Ave’s deconstructed dishes, a stacked Greek salad. Photo courtesy Death Ave | NYC.

Then the high rise residential buildings began to pop up, many along the High Line. If you’re going to live far west in Chelsea, having a neighborhood park—especially such a hip, trendy one—is an amenity unmatched by other ‘hoods.

Along with the burgeoning numbers of visitors and residents came the restaurants. We recently visited a particularly charming one, Death Ave.

A RESTAURANT NAMED “DEATH?”

First, you’ll say: What kind of name is Death Ave for a restaurant, much less a modern Greek one?

Its location, Eleventh Avenue, was nicknamed “Death Avenue” in the late 19th century.

In the mid-1800s, the Hudson River Railroad built freight train tracks, to transport meat and other goods to the city’s bustling Meat Packing District (today, there’s no more meat packing but a loft and condo neighborhood).

Although inconceivable today, the train tracks ran at street level, right through the same avenue that was used by pedestrians and carriage traffic. Inevitably, hundreds of people were hit and killed by the trains. By the 1890s, the street was nicknamed “Death Avenue.”

The stretch of avenue where the restaurant is located is drab, but gentrification will come. And until then, restaurateur Michael Tzezailidis has built a beautiful new restaurant. A 120-year-old tenement building has been transformed into an urban oasis.

There’s a bar for drinking and nibbling; private, curtain-enclosed booths; a main dining room with and a splendid patio with a retractable roof for rainy days. It has a large bar and lounge area along with table seating.

The menu is a creative modernization of Greek fare: a deconstructed Greek salad and souvlaki “tacos” for dinner and deconstructed ham and eggs for breakfast and brunch.

There is also more conventional fare, from a mezze plate to braised octopus and lamb shank, all stylishly served.

The cocktails are impressive (be sure to have the current specialties); and although we have to return to try the beer, there’s an in-house brewery. Death Ave is an “estiatorio and zythopoiia”; in Greek, estiatorio is a restaurant, zythopoiia is a brewery.

It’s a lovely place to relax after your stroll on the High Line.

Raw milk, another term for unpasteurized milk, is used for drinking and making cheeses. When milk is pasteurized (heated to more than 100°F/40°C), hundreds of varieties of beneficial bacteria are killed along with the potentially harmful ones.

If left alive, those good bacteria interact with the milk to provide significantly more complexity and depth of flavor to the cheese.

That’s why many connoisseurs prefer raw milk cheeses.

Due to rare but potential illness from unpasteurized milk, the FDA restricts the distribution of raw milk cheeses aged less than 60 days*; although raw milk cheeses are readily available in Europe.

So you can buy raw milk cheese in the U.S., just not fresh ones (for example, no fresh goat cheese or Camembert). The restriction also applies to imported cheeses.

Nor can retailers sell raw milk for drinking; although in its wisdom, the FDA allows consumers who visit farms bring their own containers to buy raw milk.†

THE ISSUE WITH RAW MILK

Despite modern sanitation, there are still some questionable practices in industrialized dairying.

This bloomy-rinded cheese from New York State is aged for 60 days, just enough to be legal in the U.S. It’s made by Vulto Creamery in Walton, New york. Photo courtesy Murray’s Cheese.

How did mankind survive thousands of years of eating unaged raw milk cheeses?

They did it before the scourge of food industrialization. With the shift from farm to factory, there was an increase in foodborne pathogens.

In industrialized production, cows are crammed into feedlots (rather than those that graze in meadows) have a greater risk of carrying pathogens. Milk from different farms is delivered to a central processing facility. There is a much greater risk that one or more farms delivers contaminated milk.

The U.S. government instituted policies to ensure that the milk, cheese and other dairy products were not harmful to human health by insisting on pasteurization for drinking milk and young cheeses.

Many of today’s small farmers feel that fresh milk from healthy animals, handled in a responsible manner and used immediately, does not require pasteurization. They drink their own milk raw, because it is far more flavorful.

As with other foods involving potential rare pathogens—Caesar salad, mousse (it’s made with raw eggs and not cooked), steak tartare, sushi and so forth, the decision to drink raw milk or eat raw milk cheese is a personal one. As outbreaks of E.coli from meat and vegetables prove, many “legal” foods are unsafe.

Head to a cheese store or a market with a good cheese department, and buy a selection of raw milk cheeses. They’re often not marked, so you may need a cheese specialist to point them out.

Enjoy a cheese plate for lunch—with fruits, nuts, breads or crackers and a salad on the side—or after your main dinner course, instead of dessert.

Have wine or beer with your cheese plate. After all, it’s a celebration!

 
*The 60-days rule was established in 1949, with questionable scientific evidence. It posited that within 60 days, the the acid and salt in cheese would kill the harmful bacteria. But there have been outbreaks of pathogens in both raw and pasteurized cheeses.

†It is illegal to distribute raw milk in the U.S., but the law allows consumers to go to a farm with their own containers and purchase raw milk. This is essentially ludicrous, as many who would buy it cannot get to the farms; and any containers brought from home will not be as clean as new ones used by farmers.