Vol. 4 Issue 12                                                       December 2022

Celebrating the Season Right​

‘Tis the season and all of us at Sheridan are ready to make your winter holidays merry and bright. One of the most unique things about our store is our handcrafted gifts including fruit and wine baskets, gift boxes, and snack trays. Each one is custom made by an expert with a lot of care and attention using only the finest products. They are indeed a seasonal favorite.
 
Oranges are a huge winter holiday gifting tradition. In this issue, we’re introducing you to a super sweet navel orange with pink flesh called Cara Cara. Which fowl to feature at your holiday dinner table can be a conundrum so why not have your birds and eat them too with our version of the turducken. Intrigued? Read on for more information.

For those in a baking mood, our house made lard is back in stock. Made in the store using high quality leaf fat, our lard ensures your pastries turn out super delicious and crisp.
 
December brings about a slew of winter holidays that include Krampus Lauf, Hanukkah, Saturnalia, Solstice, Festivus, Christmas, Kwanzaa, and the New Year. Regardless of which holiday you celebrate, we want to wish you the happiest and most joyous of occasions.
 
We are open our regular hours on Christmas Eve, 12/24/22, from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. As usual, we will be closed on Christmas Day and will be open and ready to serve you on 12/26/22 at 8 a.m. Happy Holidays!

In this issue...

​Unique and Handcrafted Gifts

We’ve been in business since 1916 and every holiday season, people flock to our store for our premium quality handcrafted fruit baskets, dried fruit trays, gift boxes and snack trays. Unlike the versions you find at big box stores, all of these are lovingly handcrafted by an expert, ensuring you are gifting only the highest quality products.

Our fruit baskets are a thing to behold. Only the choicest fruits make it into our fruit baskets. All the apples and pears used are Northwest grown so you can be assured of their freshness. Click here and peruse all the different options we offer. Assorted nuts and snack trays are also meticulously put together by an expert on our staff. Follow this link to see what is available. 

We also have a variety of gift boxes filled with fruits and other local Northwest goodies that are sure to excite and please the recipient. Have a look by clicking on this link. 

If you’re not completely sure what to get a loved one, why not let them choose for themselves? Sheridan Gift Cards are a crowd pleaser and are good for anything we sell in the store. Visit our gift card webpage to find out more or to purchase online.

Some special holiday items such as our holiday themed gift boxes and premium snack trays are available only during the holiday season. These items are not mass produced and are also carefully crafted by a person and not a machine. For more information, please visit www.sheridanfruit.com, email info@sheridanfruit.com or call us at 503-236-2114.

The Sweetest Pink

Not all oranges are created equal, and none is sweeter than the Cara Cara navel orange. While it looks like a regular navel orange on the outside with a smooth yet pebbled skin, you'll find the flesh within is a lovely hue of pink, similar to a grapefruit. The meat of the fruit is tender, succulent, and extremely juicy.
 
Cara Caras are lower in acidity than regular navels and extremely suitable for fresh eating. The flavors are reminiscent of tangerines with a mix of robust and complex citrus aromatics. Cara Caras contain 20% more vitamin C and 30% more vitamin A when compared to regular navels. They also contain lycopene, a pigment which gives the pink color to its pulp. Research has shown this natural pigment can fight against certain diseases.
 
These oranges can also be used in cooking where regular oranges are called for. The zest of Cara Caras are more aromatic than regular navels. Fresh oranges will keep for up to two weeks in cold storage. The juice can be frozen in an air tight container for up to six months.
 
A bud sport (naturally occuring mutation), the first Cara Cara was found growing on a Washington navel orange tree in 1976 at Hacienda Cara Cara in Venezuala, hence its name. Cara Caras are available in winter months from December through April at Sheridan.

Three Birds With One Bite

What if you can’t decide on which poultry you’d like to have for your holiday meal? Well, Sheridan has the perfect solution for you. Try a turducken, a franken-bird of epic proportions made up of a chicken stuffed in a duck which is then stuffed into a boneless turkey—engastration at its finest.
 
Turducken is a portmanteau of turkey, duck, and chicken. No one is sure who created the dish, but it was popularized by Cajun chef Paul Prudhomme and gained national notoriety via John Madden, who would serve the dish during Thanksgiving Day games and then later on Monday Night Football broadcasts. Hebert's Specialty Meats in Maurice, Louisiana, claims they created the dish in 1985 when a local man brought his own birds to their shop and asked the brothers to make a unique dish.
 
Stuffing smaller animals into bigger animals has been a popular centerpiece for feasts throughout history. In ancient Rome, the highlight of many days long extravagant parties would often culminate in a dish involving a cow stuffed with a pig stuffed with a goose stuffed with a duck stuffed with a chicken.
 
During the Tudor era in England, the must have royal Christmas pie consisted of a pigeon inside a partridge inside a chicken inside a goose inside a turkey—all baked in a very large pie crust.  Engastration is not unique only to the Western world. The Bedouins have a tradition of going big with a camel stuffed with a lamb stuffed with a chicken stuffed with rice and hard-boiled eggs.
 
While our version is not as big as the Bedouin’s, our turducken is made by stuffing a boneless turkey with a boneless duck that is stuffed with a boneless chicken. In between the chicken and turkey, there is a delectable layer of apple cranberry walnut stuffing and between the duck and chicken is a layer of sausage stuffing.
 
This dish is unique and time-consuming to make so we do require you to order and prepay ahead of time. The minimum weight for a Sheridan turducken is 15 lbs. so be ready to feed a large party.

​Call us at 503-236-2114 and we’ll get you set up and ready to wow your dinner guests.

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