Orange County Rustic

The Yorba Linda farmers market is tiny, including only nine certified producers, but it offers some good growers and a sweet small-town ambiance.

There’s not much citrus left in Yorba Linda, alas, but last Sunday 16-year-old Katie Strandberg of Crown 12 Ranch drove from nearby Corona with her parents’ unusual lemons: Villafranca, a fine old Sicilian variety; large, juicy Ponderosa, a hybrid of citron and lemon; and most intriguingly, Pink Lemonade, with striped rind and pink pulp. She also had light-pink Shambar grapefruit, a mutation of Marsh discovered in Corona in 1936, Pinkerton and Hass avocados and a few branches of fresh bay leaves.

Shoppers’ jaws dropped when they saw the centerpiece of Eli Hofshi’s display: three pineapples, grown in greenhouses in Fallbrook, the first of 120,000 amazingly sweet fruits that he’s preparing to loose on the world. He also sold the last of his 3-inch-long, dark purple Pakistan mulberries; sugary Chioggia Candy Cane beets; colorful Easter Egg radishes; and yellow wax and green beans.

Edgar Jaime of Industry set out an attractive display of his family’s vegetables, including corn, carrots, zucchini, tomatoes, collard greens and old-fashioned Iceberg lettuce. Fullerton-based Richard Haffke of Noah’s Honey (named after his grandson) sold five kinds of honey: creamy and mild star thistle, orange blossom, sage, alfalfa and wildflower. From Hinkley, in the high desert west of Barstow, Joel Christison of 3Cs Ranch brought excellent pistachios, salted and unsalted. Remick Family Farm of Reedley, in the Central Valley, sold several varieties of modern low-acid stone fruit, including bland Ivory Princess white peaches and more flavorful Honeyblaze yellow nectarines.

Yorba Linda farmers market, Main Street north of Imperial Highway, Sundays 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.