I have a new favorite destination....Red Hook, Brooklyn.  Well not just Red Hook, it's the outdoor picnic space at the newly opened Fairway in Red Hook that has caught my fancy too.  For the uninitiated, Fairway is a cross between the old lower east side push carts, a good local supermarket and Zabars.  Not fancy, but  a very good selection of usually well-priced and high quality produce, groceries, prepared foods, baked goods and other household items.  There are now three Fairway markets in New York City.  The Red Hook location is housed in a coffee warehouse circa 1869 right smack overlooking New York's harbor and Ms. Liberty.  Now that's a whole different kind of sustainability.

All of this discussion of a Fairway should not negate the presence of the Red Hook farmer's market which is open every Saturday during the summer.  The market began in the late 1990s not long after bodegas took up the slack when the only neighborhood supermarket closed(see more discussion of bodegas a few stories down). The Red Hook farmer's market has provided one of the poorest sections of Brooklyn with healthy, locally grown produce and other fresh farm products.  It has also given the neighborhood youth a positive community gardening activity.

And what does all this have to do with Pluots?  Pluots is the trade name for a fruit developed in the late 20th century by Floyd Zaiger, a biologist, "who has spent his life in pursuit of the perfect fruit."  The pluot is a complex hybrid that is 3/4 plum and 1/4 apricot.   There are about 20 varieties of the pluot with fanciful names like Dapple Dandy, Blue Gusto, Flavor Prince, Candy Stripe and Hand Grenade.  The varieties are available at different times from May through September.  From all sides, the fruit looks like an old fashioned plum.  And when you test the fruit by gingerly pressing its flesh you just want to dive right in.

Well I saw these pluots for the first time when I was at Fairway in Red Hook this past weekend and I had to give them a go. The best I can tell the Dapple Dandy's were the one's that I chose which are generally harvested the last week of July. I bought two of them--set me back nearly $5.00 at $3.99 per pound--and I made my way to the outdoor picnic area.  Well as I had suspected, they tasted just like plums I was fed 100 years ago when I was a child.  Sweet, incredibly juicy and perfectly ripe with just a hint of that unique apricot tartness.  And the view...oh my god.  We had just suffered through over a week of deadly hot and humid weather and it finally broke late Friday.  Saturday on that pier with that plum was pure heaven.  About 85 degrees and dry with gorgeous blue skies.  In New York, we call that 1 of the 10 best.

I hate to be a spoiler but I will take the very dangerous step of leaving you with this question.  How come we need a complex hybrid of a plum crossed with an apricot to end up with plums the way they used to taste? And I don't know, but hybrid food with a variety called Hand Grenade makes me really nervous.  I have no doubt you wouldn't find pluots at the Red Hook farmers market, but it all reminded me of what once was....

DIRECTIONS: I recommend skipping the planes, trains and cars and opting for New York Water Taxi or buses instead.  While public transportation options to Red Hook are limited the Ferry from points along the East River and the Q61 bus from Queens are both very interesting rides.  The Q61 travels from Long Island City in Queens down the length of Brooklyn through some of its oldest neighborhoods.