Summer is melon season. And melon season has arrived with full force. A stroll down our rainbow produce department will tell you that much. We’re thrilled to carry your favorite melons, plus some new and funky varieties you might not yet have tried. 

How to choose a perfectly ripe, sweet, juicy melon? Put your nose up close and smell. If you sense sweet, heady, fragrant aromas, go ahead and grab that melon. It’s going to be a good one.

What to do with the melon once it’s home? Have a few big slices beside breakfast; chunk up for fruit salads; and serve with prosciutto for a perfect summer app.

Watch our produce guru Peter Romano demystify those long-named, mysterious-looking melons. Hint: they’re mighty tasty. And find out what Peter has appointed “the best melon in God’s creation.”

The bounty of the coast is intoxicating. Bouillabaisse! Salade nicoise! Fresh fish (Branzino! Orata!), and briny mussels. Fragrant basil, bright lemon, and plenty of garlic. Oregano, rosemary, and mint.

On the rocky coast of Liguria, vendors hawk resta— strings of fresh hazelnuts. Ships sailing into port against a sea breeze are greeted by the heady fragrance of sweet basil, that’s how dense and lush herbs thrive on the steep hillsides near Genoa. And everywhere, there is pesto.

In Provence, dusty, silvery-leaved olive trees have been growing for hundreds and hundreds of years. The wrinkly olives are ubiquitous finger food, or they get mashed up with olive oil and become tapenade. Each fall, ripe olives are crushed into a potent pulp that will form the basis for cooking everything, drizzling on everything, dressing salads. Wooden salad bowls do not get washed, only rubbed, so that the extra virgin oil will flavor the wood and imbue salads to come.

And then there are perfect tomatoes. Beautiful eggplants. Artichokes in springtime. Fennel. The thrill of brandade—still-hot salt cod, crushed with olive oil and garlic (what else?). The magic of a minestrone, simmered for a lavishly long time, so that the veggies and beans and perhaps short ribs melt into each other and the whole house smells warm and symphonic.

It has caught the attention of nutritionists and food writers that all this is not only incredibly romantic and delicious, but also healthy. We’re not nutritionists, but we know eating fresh, wholesome, unprocessed foods, simply and wonderfully prepared is good for the body and soul. We believe in the staggering power of good olive oil, and support feasting on veggies, fruits, and grains. Also: fresh fish and shellfish, nuts and seeds, lots of herbs and spices…

Also important: fresh air, and leisurely, beautiful meals enjoyed with family and friends. And a glass of wine or two at dinner.

But not with olive oil.  It would seem we want to remain ignorant about olive oil.

Here at Fairway, we are learning more about olive oil every week, and after 40 years of thinking about food, we finally realize we have ignored the single-most important food in our lives.

Even the most famous chefs are almost totally ignorant about olive oil.

Rest assured your Fairway olive oil-lovers are trying to teach you all they have learned, all they continue to learn on a weekly basis.  There is no food nutritional subject that even approaches the cruciality of learning about olive oil.

Let’s start with the ‘TRUTHS’ about olive oil, as written by the legendary, industry-leading, guiding light, Milano-resident  Dr. Gino Celletti, author of the brilliant ‘MONOCULTIVAR OLIVE OIL, the perfect olive oil’.  Dr. Celletti was recently the Chief Judge of the New York International Olive Oil Competition, the world’s largest olive oil event.  His book, Monocultivar Olive Oil, The Perfect Olive Oil, contains these ‘truths’.

TRUTH #1

There isn’t any olive oil inside an olive.  It isn’t like making orange juice; if only it was as simple as the ads make it sound.

TRUTH #2

Green olives and black olives do not exist.  Unlike grapes, all olives are green at the beginning, and as they ripen they all become black.

TRUTH #3

And if olives are allowed to turn black, they get angry.  And if they could talk, they’d be swearing.

TRUTH #4

If an olive is “virgin”, it has already had sex.  We all are born virgins, but olive oil, if it’s born as a “virgin” by law, it may have already had sex for 35% of its life.  The EU Regulation EC 640/2008, on a scale of 0 to 10, allows for up to 3.5 defects.

TRUTH #5

The first press doesn’t exist, and neither does the 2^nd nor the 3^rd.  There can only be one press, and re-grinding the pomace is illegal.  Have you ever seen “wine from the first press”?  No!  And it is the same for olive oil.  So why do they continue to say ‘first-press olive oil’?

TRUTH #6

“Cold-press” doesn’t exist.  The pressing room is “warm”.  SO warm, in fact, that if we were at the seaside, we could go for a swim, and if it were any less warm we couldn’t extract even a single drop of olive oil.

TRUTH #7

“Extra-virgin” is not the 1^st press.  “Olive oil” is not the 2^nd press.  “Pomace and olive oil” is not the 3^rd press.

TRUTH #8

Genuineness isn’t quality.  Too many shysters sell genuine, but not quality olive oil.  The consumer is confused by the two concepts, and is deceived.

TRUTH #9

Adulteration is not sophistication.  This technical data is not just for a government’s bureaucrat chemists; it is for all of us.  It is better to know what they are saying or telling us.

TRUTH #10

Always taste before using.   Why do we always taste wine, but never olive oil?

TRUTH #11

If you sense aromas with your nose why is it called aftertaste?  If you sense it with your nose it is smell, and therefore better to say aftersmell.

TRUTH #12

The flavors coffee, strawberry, mint?  They do not exist.  What you are sensing in your mouth are really the aromas of coffee, strawberry and mint through your nose.  They are not from “taste”, but “smell”.  Never say “mint-taste” again.

TRUTH #13

Extra-virgin olive oil must have a scent.  If it doesn’t, it must not be chosen.  Learn how to sample olive oil; protect your family.  Frauds are ever-present.

TRUTH #14

“Good” olive oil must be spicy; the more the better.  Anti-oxidants are spicy.  Consumers in the north of Europe tend not to like them, but they are the reason olive oil is healthy.

TRUTH #15

“Good” olive oil must be spicy.  If it isn’t, it’s a fraud.  It means that it hasn’t come from olives, or it’s been washed.  It’s either a scam or just cheap.

TRUTH #16

If you smell a defect, it isn’t extra-virgin.  When tested, extra-virgin olive oil by law cannot have any defects.  Despite that, defective oils are sold everywhere (particularly in American supermarkets and specialty food stores).

TRUTH #17

If your olive oil is bitter, thank the person who gave it to you.  Bitterness is not a defect, but rather a positive characteristic.  Olive oil can be sweet or bitter just as wine can be red or white.

TRUTH #18

A green color in olive oil is not a sign of quality.  Instead, it could be a scam.  Olive oil-tasters test olive oil in blue or brown glasses so as not to be influenced by the color.

TRUTH #19

Olive oil should not be odorless, colorless or tasteless.  If it is, we are denying the consumer his expectations of health.

TRUTH #20

You cannot assess an olive oil’s acidity with your mouth.  If someone is claiming to do so, they are either a scam artist or … bionic.

TRUTH #21

Why do you put salt and pepper on olive oil, yet not in wine?  Perhaps because the olive oil you are using has no taste?  With an early-harvest monocultivar olive oil, salt and pepper are not necessary.

TRUTH #22

Olive oil makes you gain weight just like pasta, bread, sweets, beer, wine, sodas, cocktails and French fries, but unlike the others, it keeps you young.  And so you might not want a croissant and cappuccino anymore; instead for breakfast a bruschetta with olive oil, tomato and basil.

TRUTH #23

Better olive oil’s visible fat than a hidden killer that tastes like butter, but isn’t.  Invisible fats are often hydrogenated.  Margarine and “trans-fatty acids” increase the risk of stroke.  Olive oil contains no cholesterol, and works to help reduce it.

TRUTH #24

An olive oil that solidifies at low temperature?  Is it a rip-off, ruined, or changed?  NO!

TRUTH #25

And my cousin’s olive oil?  The most likely rip-off of all.  The farmer’s olive oil, the one you picked up during your vacation, and my cousin’s olive oil, all have the same common denominator:  RIP-OFF.  “Genuineness” is different from quality.  It is this “sweet”, never spicy olive oil which has traveled to the refinery, that has mis-educated the consumer.  Family means trust, but it certainly does not guarantee quality.  If your cousin, in good faith, uses the same olive oil at home, even he is being fooled.

TRUTH #26

Oil for your car at 20 euro per liter and olive oil for your mind and body at 2 euro per liter?  The oil for your car costs ten times more than the olive oil for your mind and body.  If you don’t respect yourself, no one else will.

TRUTH #27

All olive trees are not the same.  There are 1584 varieties of olive trees, or “cultivars”, in the world.  In Italy alone, there are 638, almost 40%!  But nobody cares about this immense fortune.

TRUTH #28

MONOCULTIVAR  OLIVE OIL – the perfect olive oil; it is harvested at the first color change.  A SINGLE VARIETY, in a controlled chain, crushed in a modified atmosphere, zero defects.

TRUTH #29

MONOCULTIVAR OLIVE OIL is REAL anti-fraud!  DNA research of a single cultivar from the bottle has been successfully tested.  Now you can pinpoint the botanical origin of a monocultivar olive oil.  There are many who won’t like this.

TRUTH #30

What’s your yield – in crap?  As long as there are producers who think in terms of “yield”, refined olive oil is OK.  At least you are saving money.  Remember:  The earlier the harvest, the better-tasting and healthier the olive oil AND the lower the yield.  The later the harvest, the LESS good-tasting the olive oil, the LESS-healthy the olive oil, yet the higher the yield.  Are you beginning to get it?

TRUTH #31

Why spend 1,000,000 euro to buy a modern olive mill if you can just “squeeze” the olives by hand?  Some media messages do nothing to educate consumers about the pricing of quality olive oil.  To produce “very good” olive oil, you need to spend a lot of money.

TRUTH #32

Stoned olive oil is like boneless fish and boneless ham.

TRUTH #33

It’s on the label, but it’s in tiny print.  We cannot prevent being overrun by bad foreign oil.  We cannot prevent these blends being made in Italy and sold abroad with an Italian brand, as if we were agents for foreign countries.  We are immensely proud of our house blends, and because we know olive oil, they  are as good as we can possibly make them.  We do this to offer very good, very low-priced olive oil.  But if we were really true to our school we would never allow blended olive oil in our stores.

TRUTH #34

Every loophole has a law.  No, it’s not a typo; in this case the reversed aphorism is correct.  For far too long, defective olive oils have been put on the market with undefined regulations.  So terrible oils, obtained from terrible olives, grown in terrible conditions have been stopped at our borders by a sacred European Community law that accepts defective EVOO and yet also defines the values?  Insane.

TRUTH #35

Polyphenols are finally legally on the label.  After requesting it for 20 years they (the EC bureaucrats) finally gave in, but it could have been done better.  Polyphenols are the wonderfully bitter anti-oxidants that are the hallmark of early harvest, monocultivar olive oils.  Polyphenols are the reason for olive oil to exist — for flavor, in order to translate other foods’ flavors, in order to allow us to live longer disease-free lives.

TRUTH #36

Rancid (oxidized) olive oils are bad for you, and consumers can easily understand that if it is explained to them.

In 1954, Nathan and his son, Leo (pictured here). partnered to create the beginnings of the first Fairway at 74th St. and Broadway

Back in the ‘70s Fairway was an unassuming Upper West downtown-Side of Broadway, one-storefront shop that offered fruits and vegetables and penny candy out of self-service bins built into a wall.  We had bad lighting, milk crates with Astroturf covers, sawdust on the wooden floor and a crow’s nest  where Harvey and Sally handled the three or four cash registers and all the Hunt’s Point Market produce tickets.

We started offering seltzer and rice cakes, and we built a deli counter.   Then we
fashioned a cheese department, and we got Jenkins in 1980.  Roasted nuts and dried fruits, bean coffee and lots of other stuff followed, and pretty soon people were talking about “The Fairway”.

We took the dress shop space next door, and pretty soon the café and the pharmacy on the south side, and by the mid-‘80s talk of The Fairway was making a racket all over town and beyond  –  suddenly Fairway was always first to offer foodstuffs that were rock ‘n roll, and the low prices captured for us lots of attention and a new-found respect.

Our Broadway store is so crowded these days nobody shops there anymore.  Time to blow it up and start over.  Milk crates.  Astroturf.

Alberto Serralha is the olive oil sage behind our thick, sweet, fragrant, and fruity barrel oil from the Ribatejo region of northern Portugal. 

Cabeço Das Nogueiras is pressed from two magical olive cultivars that grow nowhere else in the world: the sweet, mild galega (the name Cabeço das Nogueiras refers to the shape of the galega olive and its “pointed head”) and the pungent cobrançosa. Other varieties. like arbequina, cornicabra, and picual are added in precise ratios to create Cabeço das Nogueiras, milled with super-modern and pristine facilities, yet with knowledge and finesse culled from generations and generations spent lovingly crafting olive oil.

This is a truly outstanding oil. The color is green-gold, the texture thick—liquid gold. It’s markedly fruity oil, with fragrances and flavors of ripe fruit, tomato, wild herbs, cooked artichoke and green apple. Explosive and olive-y. The finish goes on and on and on.

Cabeço will deliver big flavor to all your cooked meats and seafood. It just dazzles as a salad oil or ready-made sauce. And honestly, we recommend it for any usage whatsoever, because it is so agreeable to us, so delicious. Can’t make it to Fairway? We’ve got you covered: order online. You need this in your culinary arsenal.

Our values are deeply rooted in supporting local growers, and we buy from nearby farmers whenever possible. Our produce is delivered every single day. It goes from the trucks right onto the shelves. There is no warehousing for Fairway produce. We do it this way because we care!

Without further ado, here are some favorites cropping up at Fairway:

Leeks

Leeks are gentle veggies, with a fresh, grassy, clean flavor. They get along great with pretty much whatever herbs, spices, and flavors come their way. Good leek and potato soup is ethereal. We like leeks in our risotto, our sautéed with chickpeas, or in a tart with plenty of Gruyere. Full of flavonoids, vitamin A and K, fiber, and Vitamin C.

Summer Squash

Those sunny yellow zucchinis, summer squash, grow crazily to announce the arrival of summer. They’re sweeter than their green cousins, and a wonderfully versatile veggie. Braise with onions and brown sugar. Cut into delicate ribbons with a mandoline, vegetable peeler, or knife, and assemble a raw squash salad with goat cheese, pine nuts, and your favorite EVOO. Toss thick slices on the grill, and serve tossed in pasta with sweet shrimp.

Sweet Cherries

What makes a house a home? A bowl of cherries on the table. Deep, dark, and lusty. Bings or floral, rose-hued Rainiers are in season for but a wonderful flash. Pit and soak in bourbon, or whatever booze suits your fancy. Cherry pie! Cherry clafoutis! Cherry preserves! The trick is not eating ‘em all before you get cooking.

Strawberries

Sure, we’ve got strawberries all year round, but summer means sweet, sweet strawberries are at their very best. Fill your basket, baby! Slice the tops off and pop into your mouth. Repeat. Repeat. Or, bake a strawberry pie, assemble an easy shortcake, whip up a smoothie, or serve a pitcher of fresh strawberry mint margaritas to your very lucky friends.

Spring Onions

Also called scallions, spring onions have a long white base that has not yet developed into a bulb and thin, straight, green stalks—both parts are totally edible. Scallions look a bit like overgrown chives. Their flavor is milder than mature onions, but still zippy enough to lend bright, refreshing spunk to many dishes. These are a welcome addition in a frittata, great chopped in a springy salad, or roasted whole with carrots and fresh thyme.

And Coming Very Soon…Tomatoes!

Summer wouldn’t be summer without ripe, drip-down-your-chin tomatoes. This time of year, they don’t need anything but perhaps a drizzle of your best EVOO and a sprinkle of fleur de sel. But if you were to add some hand-pulled Fairway mozz to the mix, or better yet—some oozy burrata imported direct from Puglia—some creamy avocado, and a handful of herbs, we wouldn’t complain.

From France we get the fromages de chevre:  Petit Billy, Rond Cendre, Ste.-Maure, Crottin de Chavignol, Valencay, etc.  All of these diminutive cheeses are bright, pristine white (unless ashed black!), sweet, highly moist, soft, tender.  As are the fresh chevres from New York State’s Coach Farm, the Spanish Murcia Naked Goat and Drunken Goat, Leon’s Canacabra. Here are a few awesome goat cheeses with which to welcome the Earth’s wildly abundant season. 

Pico: A creamy, dainty button of chevre from Perigord, Pico oozes under its thin, wrinkly, edible rind while maintaining a firm, cake-y, lactic center. Minerally, fresh, but also so rich and buttery. Oh man.

Sainte-Maure de Touraine A.O.C: A village south of Tours gave its name to the classic chevre baton with the length of straw stuck down the center to hold the cheese together as it ripens.  This is one of the great fromages de chevre de France brought to Fairway by master cheesemonger Steve Jenkins in 1980 for the first time in cheese history.

Queso Clara: A deeee-light.  A mitzvah.  Serendipity!  Dumb luck to have fallen across it.  A raw, firm, yet tender handmade RAW goat’s milk cheese, legal (90-days aged), rustic, primitive, shouldn’t exist at all, but one of those cheeses you taste in Europe that makes you say to yourself ‘why can’t I have this cheese at my counters?’  Well, I do.  And it’s Queso Clara, and it’s made by a young couple not far from Salamanca in Leon.  Has that superb flavor that only comes from raw milk, a sensation on the palate that sends you off into a reverie of being a long way from the Land of Boring Supermarket Cheeses.  Serve it with all manner of accompaniment.

Humboldt Fog: Created by Mary Keens at Cypress Grove Chevre in McKinleyville, California, Humboldt Fog is named after Humboldt County’s thick morning fog. It’s an American original—Mary Keens started crafting goat cheeses in the 1980’s—and helped lead the American artisanal cheesemaking revolution. The fog rolls in on a gorgeous wheel of goat’s milk cheese with a clean, lemony, lactic taste which becomes earthier and mustier with age. Cut open the pillowy bloomy rind to find bright white, smooth paste, bisected with a thin line of black vegetable ash. So pretty and festive!

Brunet: This fluffy, silky soft-ripened goat’s milk cheese from the little Piedmontese village of Bosia is luscious as whipped cream, oozy, perfect. Definitely eat the whole thing, rind and all. Brunet tastes like mushrooms, yeast, and sweet, sweet cream. Awesome with sweet beets and an un-oaked Chardonnay. Tear off a hunk of baguette and smear a generous smear, life is good.

Why is Copper River Salmon worth dropping everything and heading straight to Fairway? Why does this fish have a fan club, a cult following?

The wild, rushing Copper River flows for 300 miles through Alaska and empties into Prince William Sound. The salmon that swim in these cold, rough waters must build up incredible reserves of fat and nutrients to carry them upstream. Hence, the Copper River’s salmon bounty is chock full of omega-3s. The fish are also luxuriously rich and melt-in-your-mouth moist—a profound delicacy. With brilliant pink-red flesh, they make a flashy splash on your dinner table.

Here’s a Copper River cheat sheet: Preheat your grill, or place a grill pan over medium high heat. Brush the grilling rack with olive oil to keep the salmon from sticking. Brush the salmon on both sides with your favorite Fairway extra-virgin olive oil, and season with plenty of salt and fresh-ground pepper. Grill until the fish flakes easily and is cooked through, about 3 minutes on each side. Transfer the salmon to a platter and let rest for 5 minutes. Feel free to top with Fairway mango salsa, a sprinkling of fragrant herbs, or a squeeze of lemon—but this wonderful salmon needs nothing!

Our supply is limited—snag before the precious salmon is all gone and you’re left with Copper River remorse.

First, the Red Hook Patio Grill is BACK. Get your pitch-perfect summer lunch here, and delve into Chef Mitchel London’s classic, fantastic cooking on the waterfront overlook sweeping views of the Statue of Liberty. Barbecued local Murray’s chicken, legendary burgers, corn on the cob, famous lobster rolls, baby back ribs, clams on the half shell, grilled lobster, and more…and to end in style, Mitchel’s knock-your-socks-off strawberry shortcake. Oh man. Visit us Saturdays and Sundays this summer from 11am to 8 pm.

Second, take the scenic route to Red Hook. A FREE ferry service is kicking off! The expanded Red Hook Summer Ferry will run between Pier 11 in Lower Manhattan and Van Brunt Street (right by Fairway!). Catch the ferry from 10:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays from Memorial Day weekend through Labor Day weekend, including the Mondays of Memorial Day and Labor Day. Check out the schedule here. Hop on!

Fairway is, indeed, the be-all and end-all, but don’t limit your Red Hook visit to our lovely store. Red Hook is a charming, remarkable seaside neighborhood full of restaurants, bars, and shops with a lot of soul. Hurricane Sandy hit Red Hook hard, and the community is still fighting to get back on its feet. We are honored to call Red Hook home and to support Restore Red Hook. Get involved in this important effort here, and enjoy the sights, sounds, and flavors of an incredible place.

This Saturday, May 25 and Sunday, May 26 from 11 am to 3 pm we will be celebrating with food demos, a DJ, and face painting for kids. It’s going to be a great day in Red Hook. See you there!

And check out the Patio Grill–watch Chef Mitchel London talk about his crazy good food:

According to Psychology Today, barbecues are great for your mental health. We could have told you that. Hanging, cooking, and eating outside are a welcome reprieve from our at-our-desk lunches and grab-a-protein-bar, run-out-the-door mornings. (For city dwellers and rainy days–cheat with a grill pan.)

Grilling is also a healthy cooking option–it’s a way to seal in flavor without adding much fat. We’re a fan of cooking any and all veggies on the grill. The heat caramelizes the natural sweetness. A bit of char? Bring it! Sweet Vidalia onions, portabellas, red peppers, ripe tomatoes, eggplants–just sprinkle with sea salt and a few grinds of black pepper, brush with Fairway EVOO, and grill ‘em up! Sweet summer corn? Heck yes. Slivers of potatoes? Serve grilled veggies beside your main, or slice them up and toss with greens for a spot-on salad.

As for a main? Head to our butcher county for endless grill possibilities. A dry-aged prime steak would make any carnivore very, very happy. Or the superfluous Fairway burger, ground and made fresh all day, every day in our stores. I wrote about our housemade and incredible sausages and kebabs last week. Salmon is exquisite on the grill, as are fresh, juicy jumbo scallops. For the veggies in your life: slather some tofu or portobello caps with Fairway’s famous BBQ sauce and nobody will feel left out.

For dessert? Oh man–grilled pineapple, grilled peaches, grilled grapefruits–these things are revelations. Or pick up some Fairway poundcake, let it get warm and just-a-bit charred, and top with Nutella, or chocolate sauce, or that grilled pineapple… Is there anything better? We think not. Enjoy!