Take a Bite of a Pixie

A number of years ago I made the mistake of telling my young girls that I had brought home Pixies for us to eat. They gasped in horror. It was during their Peter Pan phase and I had been spreading story-dust about the magical fairies and pixies that live with the flocks of wild parrots that inhabit the evergreen trees in the northeast corner of San Francisco. I had forgotten my own lore about the little parrot saddles for the young pixies who can't fly and the secret hiding places and tunnels under North Beach for all the magical creatures. Now, tears were starting to flow. "No, no," I said as I pulled out some fruit. "These Pixies are just tangerines." They looked at them for a moment in wonder. "Do Fairies and Pixies help them grow?" one of my daughters asked. "They sure do. Let me tell you all about it..."

The magical families in the Ojai valley of California are to be thanked for this week's Pixie crop. We've been working with a group in California called the Growers Collaborative. The collaborative brings all sorts of small, family farms together in order to help promote and sell their products. I'm proud to say that The FruitGuys are one of the Collaborative's largest fruit buyers. This week's Pixie tangerines come fresh from a number of small, conventional and organic farms in the Ojai valley. Pixies are part of that tangerine class that are sweet, easy to peel, and seedless. Think Satsuma with a tighter peel, less tart, and more sugary-tangerine taste. Ojai has nearly 25,000 Pixie trees that begin to produce fruit in March. The crop will run sometime into May and June.

Enjoy and be fruitful!

Check out the section on our site that explains what each fruit is. Variety changes by region.

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