Sure it’s easy to find plenty of fresh fruit under the summer sun, but did you know that wintertime is the best time for citrus? The seasonal tasting menu at Bacchanalia puts the word right up front with a selection of Winter Citrus Sorbets including blood orange, tangerine, grapefruit and Meyer lemon. The slightly bittersweet tang of grapefruit is paired with Gulf crab fritters, Thai pepper and avocado as a second course at the restaurant. “I love grapefruit,” says Anne Quatrano executive chef and co-owner of Bacchanalia, Floataway Café and Abattoir. She says grapefruit finds its way into just about every course when it’s in season, “I love the way it cuts the richness of lobster to make it even better. We use it in cocktails and I love grapefruit combined with tarragon for desserts.”
Raw fluke crudo style is served with blood orange and pink grapefruit at newly opened St. Cecilia in Buckhead. The menu at this chef Ford Fry restaurant is inspired by the cuisine of Mediterranean coastlines featuring seafood and pastas with bold flavors including the bright notes of citrus. At the bar tangerine juice is paired with bourbon in a craft cocktail created by beverage consultant Lara Creasy.
The Grapefruit League
Pink, white and ruby red grapefruit from Florida, at the peak of availability now, are tumbling into supermarket produce sections and ready for you to section into fruit bowls, over salads, into salsas and on top of ice cream for dessert. Grapefruit not only brightens up winter taste buds; it offers a terrific source of vitamin C, the mineral potassium, folic acid and dietary fiber. Grapefruit has a “diet-friendly” reputation because it contains less sugar than most other fruit so is lower in calories. One-half of a medium grapefruit contains only 60 calories and with fewer than 100 calories per 8-ounce serving, grapefruit juice contains fewer calories than many commonly consumed fruit juices. Pink and ruby red grapefruit are higher in beta-carotene (vitamin A) content compared to the white varieties. The darker the red, the higher the vitamin A content.
Winemaker, Janet Trefethen of Trefethen Family Vineyards in Napa Valley, suggests pairing grapefruit’s aromatic flavors with un-oaked or lightly oaked Chardonnay, “The bright acidity and citrus character of the wine would play beautifully with the dish and I think they would complement each other.”
Grapefruit Footnote:
Natural compounds in grapefruit can interfere with the way certain medicines are metabolized making them more potent than they should be - including statin drugs, calcium channel blockers and some ant-anxiety medications. So check with your physician or pharmacist to be sure your prescription allows you to safely consume winter’s fresh grapefruit. If not, enjoy the oranges and tangerines!
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