The other day Shane O’Dea, in his business shirt and slacks (he’s a paediatrician by day), wandered into the Fair Food warehouse with a 5kg box of shiny pink and white fresh pistachios (like those in the pic up there) and asked if we were interested in trying some. Now you could quite easily live your whole life without ever seeing a fresh pistachio, needless to say even though there were only three of us around at the time we mobbed Shane for a taste. As well as being beautiful to look at the nuts are fresh and clean tasting and you really get that feeling, that understanding, that taste of where something so familiar comes from.
Twelve years ago, with climate change and diversity in mind, Shane’s family planted 2000 pistachio trees on their Goulburn Valley property. Pistachios are a very hardy desert plant that can hack heat, cold and salty soils. More than a decade later this is the O’Dea’s second harvest and the fresh nuts are only available for a few weeks each year with most being sun-dried and bagged up for sale through the year (we hope to get some of these in as well).
Shane’s returning tomorrow with a load of fresh pistachios and this week we’ll be featuring them in a selection of set produce boxes as well as in the webshop. You eat them a little like fresh broad beans, peeling off the two outer layers to get to the tasty nut/kernel inside. Shane says keep them in an open bowl in the fridge and eat them within a few days.