- Washington Grown is made possible by funding from the Washington State Department of Agriculture and the USDA Specialty Crop Block Grant Program.

And by The Potato Farmers of Washington.

Learn why Washington is home to the world's most productive potato fields and farmers by visiting potatoes.com.

[light music] - On this special season of "Washington Grown", we're following Washington produce around the world.

Here we go.

- I mean there is just stuff happening everywhere.

- Breakfast, lunch, or dinner.

- Breakfast, lunch, or dinner.

[Kristi laughs] I'm doing all the work over here.

- That's a Tomás deluxe.

All good things are better shared right?

- Cheers my friend.

- Cheers.

[Val laughs] - I can't even walk.

Hot diggety dog!

- We got a lot to explore and a lot to do.

So let's get to it.

- To Washington.

- To Washington.

- Washington.

Hi everyone, I'm Kristi Gorenson.

And welcome to "Washington Grown."

Here in Washington, we grow an incredible amount of produce and people all over the world want what we grow.

In today's episode, we're celebrating our international partnerships.

Val's picking pears at Triple Tall Orchards.

- You better do it faster.

- Okay.

I don't know if I could be as fast as you.

- I'm kidding, I'm just kidding.

- And I'm making Japanese strawberry shortcake at Fuji Japanese Bakery.

- Just have your focus right there.

And then just land for it.

- Yeah, yep.

You got it.

- Plus, Tomás and I are learning why Washington fruit is so important for a Vietnamese holiday.

- Five.

- Oh, we're getting five.

Oh, okay.

I think we just bought some cats.

- Did you?

I didn't, bye.

- All this and more.

Today on "Washington Grown."

Looking for something to satiate your sweet tooth?

Come on down to Fuji Bakery in Seattle.

This Japanese bakery sets itself apart with a unique and delicious arrangement of sweet and savory goodness.

Giving customers an experience that will have them coming back time and time again.

- I will buy a box and bring it into the office and in two seconds they're gone.

- I'd recommend everything.

- They come to look for something new, something unique.

'Cause we have a unique fusion going on here.

- Owner Susien Lee brings a special fusion of Japanese and French baking techniques, like the kind you'd see in Japan, to Seattle.

This style combined with the freshness of Washington produce creates an amazing assortment of delectably light and fluffy desserts.

Japanese style French bakery.

- Yes.

Because in Japan, there are two styles of pastries.

There's the wagashi, which is truly Japanese, but then a lot of times you walk around in Tokyo or any of the big cities in Japan, their bakeries are French bakeries.

But then what they do is they take the French techniques, they lighten up the creams to better feed the Japanese palettes.

- I see.

- Yeah, so that's what we call Japanese style French bakeries.

- Great, okay.

- The sweet stuff is not like super sweet.

- The flavors are just perfect.

- Biting into a bunch of like soft cloud goodness, and just yummy.

- It's dangerous.

- Japanese cuisine, they have a emphasis on natural ingredients.

They want to showcase the ingredients flavor first.

- I see.

- Before the sugar.

- Okay.

- And then texture wise, they like things that are fluffy and soft.

- Lighter and fluffier.

- Yes.

- I like that too.

- Everything fluffy.

- Yes.

- Like donuts.

Okay, taller, fluffier.

- Fluffy.

- Yep.

- Stick around because later in the show, Susien and I will make Fuji Bakery's famous Japanese strawberry shortcake.

I'm so bad at this, Susien.

- Oh, you can make the American shortcake.

- Oh, yeah.

- Yeah.

American shortcake is, you can see all the layers.

[cheery music] - We meet all sorts of people on the show, but all of them seem to have one thing in common.

They work hard to bring us the best food we can possibly have.

Up in the hills of Dryden at Triple Tall Orchards, this is no exception.

Here, the Tall family is working hard to grow delicious pears.

Although Eldon Tall didn't start out farming, he's been doing it for a while.

- Grew up near Seattle and I wanted to get out in the country and do something in farming.

A friend of mine had an apple and pear orchard in Cashmere, and he said, "Why don't you buy a orchard?"

And I thought, "Well, I never thought of that, but maybe that'd be a good idea."

- My dad's 78 and he still works six days a week out here.

He always wanted to be a cattle rancher, but decided pears was the next best thing.

- Eldon's son, John, owns the property with his father.

Pears here are incredible for a few special reasons.

- This is one of the best pear growing regions in the world.

- You can grow apples, a lot of places, but to grow good pears it, it takes certain things.

And we have the soil, the water, and a lot of sunshine.

And it's just is a premier pear growing area.

- Now, orchard foreman, Guillermo, is going to show me how to properly pick pears.

Show me how to pick a perfect pear.

- Yeah, you can pick two at the same time.

Just go like this.

Yeah.

- Oh, my goodness.

- Pretty easy.

- Easy?

- Easy, huh?

- Yeah.

- Okay, let's see.

I'm gonna start with one.

- Okay.

- Just like that?

- Yeah, just like that.

- Yay.

- Yeah.

When I start over here, working over here.

Oh, I was pretty young.

I was maybe like 30 something.

- Yeah?

- Right now, I'm at 70... 71, I think.

- 71.

- I'm not for sure.

You can keep working.

- Keep going?

All right, yes, sir.

- Yeah, you better.

You better do it faster.

- Okay.

I don't if I can be a fast as you.

- I'm kidding, I'm just kidding.

I'm just kidding.

It's okay.

- Very gently.

- Yeah.

- Because I don't wanna bruise.

- Yeah, no, we don't want that.

- My little picked pears going to market.

- Next time, you can come early and work a little longer.

- Come earlier and work a little longer.

Yes, sir.

After all my hard work, the Talls were kind enough to leave me some special treats.

You know, I can't believe the bounty of all this wonderful food that the Talls have left for me.

Where's a nibble buddy when you need it.

- That's all you had to say.

That's all you had to say.

- Good to see you, Tomás.

- You too.

- Look at this.

Can you believe it?

Pear cake.

- Man, look at that.

- Fresh Bartletts.

- And who says we don't have fun on this show?

- You know, they've been talking about how buttery, how juicy, how sweet these are.

- And these Bartletts, I mean, they're classic for a reason.

- They are.

- Look at this beautiful pear bread.

Now who made this?

- Mrs.

Tall prepared this for us.

Well, I thought it was me, but I guess it's now us.

- Well, you know, all good things are better shared, right?

- Cheers, my friend.

- Cheers.

That's delicious.

- My hope I'm doing this as daintily as Kristi would do it.

- Nah, we just go into it.

[Val laughing] It's about having fun here.

[cheery music] [upbeat music] - Here in Vietnam, it's the busy season as people all around the city prepare for the biggest holiday around, the Lunar New Year, also called Tet.

Everywhere you look, preparations are being made for the celebration.

- We are here in Chinatown, in Ho Chi Minh City.

Cholon, we call big market.

- Francis Lee is our guide for our trip to Ho Chi Minh City.

As a Washington agriculture representative, he knows that Washington fruit is a huge part of the holiday celebration.

- When guests or relatives come to visit your home, you have full colors of fruits on the table.

Your house are decorated very red and lucky.

- And so, giving fruit as a gift is a tradition.

- It is a very important tradition because when you visit the house, they were offer to the ancestor on the altar.

They were full of colors of fruit.

- And a lot of that comes from Washington state, right?

- Exactly.

Exactly, that's why at this time of year, we will see many apples are being shipped here.

And also through the wholesale market and the wet market, they can get the fruits.

- That's great.

- Yeah.

- I love that our Washington fruit is helping people celebrate.

- Yeah, that's the color of Tet.

- Exactly.

Next, Tomás and I took to the streets of the market to learn how to celebrate Tet.

- I mean, this is just amazing.

The hustle, the bustle, yeah.

- A lot of red and gold and fun, glitzy kind of stuff.

- Yeah, it's just vibrant and it's alive.

And there's just activity everywhere you look.

And from what I understand, it's year of the cat here in Vietnam, but elsewhere, it's something else, I think.

- Year of the rabbit.

- Yeah, year of the rabbit elsewhere.

- Yeah, so it's the new year, but it's sort of like Christmas where there's lots of gifts exchanged and that sort of thing.

- Yeah, so it's amazing that they filled these gift baskets with apples and pears.

- I know.

- And all of the things that, you know, we just eat every day.

We take for granted.

But here, it's like a beautiful-- - Yeah.

- Beautiful gift to be given.

- Five.

- Oh, we're getting five?

Oh, okay.

I think we just bought some cats.

- Did you?

I didn't, bye.

[Tomás laughs] [upbeat music] - Next, we were invited into a 350-year-old Chinese temple where prayers and blessings were being said for all the people celebrating the holiday.

- So much just detail and ornateness and all the little pieces of the structure.

- All the red and gold.

In the spirit of the season, Tomás and I wanted to add a blessing of our own for all the Washington farmers back home.

See here, it says, "Washington Grown."

- "Washington Grown" in 2023.

- This is so cool.

So we're gonna light this.

I would like to wish all of our growers and farmers back in Washington state a prosperous season so that we continue supplying this lovely country of Vietnam with great Washington food.

This is awesome.

- Well, it's a very spiritual moment that we don't get to experience.

- Right.

- Very often.

- Yeah.

Happy New Year.

- Happy New Year.

- Yay.

[upbeat music] Coming up, I'm making strawberry shortcake at Fuji Japanese Bakery.

I'm so bad at this, Susien.

- Oh, you can make the American shortcake.

- Oh, yeah.

- Yeah, the American shortcake is, you can see all the layers.

[upbeat music] - We're back at Fuji Bakery in Seattle with one location in the Interbay District and another in the International District.

This little bakery is creating some unbelievably delicious goodies that leave people a little obsessed.

- I've been slowly working my way through like the entire menu.

- Their Malasadas are great.

- They have amazing cakes.

They're very light and tasty.

- Crunchy cream is really good.

- Obviously, I got a huge box.

- Their chocolate mousse.

Super smooth and rich.

I've had their tiramisu.

It now sounds like I'm here all the time.

[people laughing] - They come to look for something new, something unique, 'cause we have a unique fusion going on here.

- Owner Susien Lee understands that the Japanese palette prefers something light and fresh which perfectly fits the amazing local produce grown right here in Washington.

- We use a lot of the berries.

They lend the perfect tart and sweet profile to a product.

By themself, they're exciting to the palette.

You don't need to do anything to them.

Just a little bit of sugar, marinating it, and then maybe a little bit of citrus, and sometimes a little bit vanilla.

- Yeah.

- To offer that complexity.

And that's all you need.

- Today, Susien and I are going to make their special and super popular strawberry shortcake.

- The strawberry shortcake is Japanese favorite and go-to cake for all celebrations.

- Oh.

- So I think that's a perfect product to showcase our local berries.

- Yes.

- Yeah, and it's simple.

It's fun to put together.

- Great, well, cheers.

Thank you so much.

- Yeah, thank you.

So this is the sponge cake.

- Okay.

- And we're gonna start with.

- It's so perfect.

- Thank you.

And we'll layer it into three.

- One more layer.

- We are only going to use two layers though.

- Okay.

- Because we are going to put in those large juicy strawberries, and then it'll make the cake way too tall.

- Sure.

Once our layers have been cut, we add some strawberry purée onto the top of the first layer.

Next comes the whipped cream with vanilla.

- When you work with real whipped cream, there is a very fine line between fully whipped, over whipped, and under whipped.

So then we are looking for a very precise whip.

- Yes.

And this is how you get strong arms.

- Oh, yes.

[both laugh] - We smooth some whipped cream over the top.

Add some cut strawberries and add more cream.

Next, we put on the second layer, add more strawberry purée, then it's time for the whipped cream frosting.

Load it up.

- Yep, load it up.

To make a cake, you would kind of push it down.

So when we're pushing, right, we're whipping the cream still.

- Oh, yeah.

- Yeah.

- Sorry.

- All right.

So, for the overhang cream, the overhang cream is what we're gonna use for the side.

- I'm so bad at this, Susien.

- Oh, you can make the American shortcake.

- Oh, yeah.

- Yeah.

American shortcake is, you can see all the layers.

- You make it look so easy.

- So I'm gonna do what we call the airplane landing skill.

- The airplane landing skill.

- Yeah, so you're gonna land.

- Okay.

- All right?

You're gonna land.

- Oh, I love that.

- Just have your focus right there.

And then just land.

Over.

Yeah, yep.

You got it.

- Oh!

We add some more strawberries then it's time for piping.

- We're making a simple border to highlight the strawberries.

- Yeah, it's beautiful.

That looks beautiful.

- I like your cake too.

- Oh, thank you.

- I don't think I could do this before I came here.

- Yeah?

- Yeah, you did really well.

- Thank you.

[upbeat music] - Make sure you get the berries.

- Yes, absolutely.

[upbeat music] Those berries are amazing and everything is perfectly...not sweet.

- Yeah.

- That doesn't make any sense, but like, it's just perfect.

It's just right.

It reminds me of summertime.

- I like the simplicity of it.

- Yes.

- You know, it's just cake, cream, and berries.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- It doesn't get any better than that.

- I'm just gonna eat more.

- Yeah, go ahead.

- For more recipes, restaurants, farms, and fun, visit us wagrown.com.

Coming up, Tomás is making a special Vietnamese pear dessert.

- Mine's a little deep, isn't it?

- It's really narrow, sure.

- That's for a big serving.

- And we're in The Kitchen at Second Harvest, trying Chef Laurent's white chocolate and strawberry bread pudding.

[upbeat music] - Countries all over the world love using fresh Washington produce.

And to prove it, I'm in Vietnam with Chef Steven Long, making some unique dishes with apples, potatoes, and pears, all of which came from Washington State.

So here we are.

We've got some incredible ingredients in front of us.

Tell us what we're gonna be working with today.

- Today, I will show you how to make the gratin potato.

- Well, let's get going.

What do we need to do first?

- First, we do the stuffing.

- We start with the stuffing using flour, butter, and eggs.

Then we add an aromatic mixture of smoky bacon, thyme, garlic, and shallots.

For the body, we thinly slice Washington potatoes and Granny Smith apples, which we layer like a rose over the stuffing.

And then we top that with butter and a bit of Parmesan cheese.

And then into the oven it goes.

Our potato apple gratin is in the oven.

- Okay.

- And it'll be done here shortly, so we're gonna move on to the next recipe.

And what do you got for us now?

- This one, we're going to make the dessert, the Asian dessert.

Every time when I get this, my mom only cook this one for me.

- Really, okay.

So this, there's some home memories.

- Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Now we start to the pear here.

- Okay, I'm bending my spoon.

Mine's little deep, isn't it?

- Well, it's really narrow, sure.

- That's for a big serving.

Maybe I'll start a revolution.

- Yeah.

- Maybe be a new way to do this.

- Yeah, that new style.

- Yeah, new style.

The Western style.

We boil some water, add lotus seeds, ginger, some jujube fruit, and an ingredient I have never heard of before.

So this is actually excreted from bird's nest?

- Yes.

- An actual bird has created this in a nest as they're making the nest, excreted from their saliva and mixed.

And this is the nest.

- The nest, yeah.

- This is what it's formed, to help get that nest, bound and sticky.

- Yeah, this one is really expensive here.

You smell the flavor?

- Yeah, it's delicious.

It smells so good.

It seems that my pear fits so much more than yours.

[Steven and Tomás laughing] - That American style.

- This is the American style.

Finally, we add some chia seeds and let 'em steam for 45 minutes.

- Yeah.

- Ooh, look at that.

That is a dish.

And now, we're gonna get our pears.

- Yeah.

- That is beautiful.

I almost don't even want to break into this.

That's beautiful, man.

- Yeah.

- Nice work.

[upbeat music] Not even funny how good that is.

Man, those sweet apples.

That provides that nice balance of sweet and salty.

- Yep.

- That apple just lightens it up.

- Yeah.

- Just gives a nice bright feeling.

So good, so good.

All right, let's go to dessert now and get some of that lotus of seed and that apple.

- Yep.

[upbeat music] - You know what I really like about this?

It's not overly sweet because I think this really allows you to enjoy these apples and the lotus seeds.

- Yeah.

- Just a lot of fun flavors in there that I wouldn't expect.

This was really cool.

- Yeah.

- Thank you so much for sharing some of these cool and unique recipes.

Thank you, chef, I really appreciate it, man.

- Thank you.

- The Washington Grown team and I are down in sunny Orlando, Florida, at the Global Produce and Floral Trade Show, where agriculture experts from all over have gathered to share ideas and meet up to talk about one of my favorite things in the world, food.

- You see exhibitors from all over the world here.

- Rianne Perry is the International Marketing Program manager at the Washington State Department of Agriculture.

Here at the Washington Grown booth, she's promoting Washington products to buyers in the states and even internationally.

- A lot of trade is really dependent on relationships, tasting the products, touching the products.

Seeing it is important, but also just that one-on-one, building a relationship is really critical.

- My name is Ton van Arnhem and I am the agricultural counselor from the Netherlands.

- The Netherlands and Washington state have something very important in common, their climate.

And that geographical similarity means that the agriculture is quite similar.

- The Netherlands is another country similar to the US where they have a lot of diversity in their agricultural production.

And they're also very innovative with technology, just like we are in Washington.

So we have a lot of synergy.

- We both focus on the specialty crops, apples, pears, but also flower bulbs, onions, potatoes.

- Right.

- And we have a similar look at the future, I think.

We both go for sustainability.

We try to do something about climate change and there, we have a lot of things in common, which we can share.

- The WSDA in the Netherlands have partnered up to share innovation and technology to help both countries grow better produce for their consumers to enjoy.

- It's really based around our tree fruit industry in particular.

And we did a mission to the Netherlands in 2019 and really kicked this off.

And that's where they saw there really was an opportunity for partnership there.

And so now they've made trips back to Washington.

We have regular meetings.

- We hope to make a lot of progress in that field together.

- I just love the fact that there's this attitude of, let's just not put the blinders on and stay at home.

We have a lot to learn and gain from exchanging information.

- Yes.

I'm really proud to have these industry groups that are so collaborative.

- Yeah.

- And countries that are collaborative and maybe they're a competitor in certain areas as well.

But looking for areas where we can work together and solve issues together.

It makes me really proud to be from Washington and to represent agriculture.

- We do not have the solution.

You do not have a solution, but maybe together, we can find a solution and that would be of benefit to everybody.

[upbeat music] - We are here at Second Harvest Food Bank in The Kitchen, ready to taste some wonderful food.

I have my taste testers with me today.

Chef Laurent Zirotti.

Glad you're here.

And, of course, my co-host, Tomás.

- Here we are again.

- I know!

Our crew is in the kitchen, madly making-- - Beautiful recipes.

- Beautiful recipes.

We have tasted some great food.

- Oh, man.

This season has been wonderful for tasting great food.

We've gotten so many opportunities to test some different unique things that are out of our wheelhouse.

- Yeah.

- Which has been a lot of fun, to say the least.

Yeah.

- Vietnam, Mexico.

Gosh, it was-- - Florida, you went to Florida.

- Yeah.

- Right, the big food fair.

Which was-- - Yeah.

- Which was an awesome experience, yeah.

- And food is a celebration, right?

- It is, it's a union.

It's what brings us together.

Look at us.

- Yes.

- We're so close together.

- Right.

- So, so good, and-- - Yeah.

- That's what unite, the communion.

- Exactly.

- Community.

- And we saw that in Vietnam 'cause we were there right before Tet, which is the Vietnamese new year.

- Yeah.

- It was the year of the cat so every, every store, every grocery store, every restaurant was gearing up for this, you know, fantastic celebration.

And a lot of it is around food.

And you give gifts of food, you know, for the new year.

And a lot of those gifts, which was the coolest thing I've ever seen, involved Washington grown products like-- - Yeah, cherries.

- Apples, cherries.

- Yeah.

- Pears were being boxed in with Washington wine.

That's really a cool thing to see.

- To see all of our products held in such like this high regard.

- Well, and to give to your loved ones.

- Yes.

- "You know, here's my gift to you.

Happy New Year."

And it involves Washington Grown products.

- Yeah.

- You know, when you come back from Vietnam and you see how our products are being used there, and then you come back to where they came from.

You know, Val and I got a chance to go to this incredible pear orchard and they made this pear bread for us.

It was just delicious.

It was fun to be able to go out there.

- Yeah.

- And not only shoot Val's segment, but then to get to do some stuff with her.

It was good, we had a good time out there.

- We always have a good time.

What's the recipe that you have developed?

- Well, we're talking about strawberries also in that segment.

- Okay.

- And we decided to make a very simple, basic dessert.

A bread pudding.

Bread pudding with white chocolate and strawberries.

- Okay.

- Holy moly.

- So, yeah.

Again, I think it's a good base for any bread pudding.

Any after, you make it your own.

- Yeah.

- You like raspberries and dark chocolate.

Then dark chocolate and raspberry.

- That sounds good.

- Sounds good too.

- Yeah.

- Any fruit, you can add to that recipe.

- Yeah.

- Would be great.

- Exactly.

- I invite you to create - Okay.

Let's take a look at how they make it.

- Okay.

[upbeat music] - All right.

- Oh, man.

- Here we go.

- You've got me.

These little strawberry action.

That's one of my favorites of all time.

And I'm excited to try this.

- I can't say that I've ever had bread pudding with strawberries in it.

- Well, today is the day.

- It's sweet, but it's not super sweet.

- And there's white chocolate in here.

- Oh, man.

- White chocolate and strawberries.

- Yum.

- It's just that blend of the textures.

You get that little crunch on the top.

It's this smooth and creamy in the middle, but then you got that beautiful strawberry and you're right.

It's just not too sweet.

- Well, bread pudding to me seems like comfort food.

- Yeah.

- It is.

- You know?

Yeah.

- Yes.

- Well, it's akin to the Tres Leches cake.

- Yeah.

- That's a comfort food.

- It's a comfort food as well.

Yeah.

- Yeah.

It's like a hug.

- Yeah.

- That's good?

- It's good.

- Laurent, that's great.

- He seems surprised.

- Glad you enjoy it.

- It's good.

Who knew?

[group laughing] To get the recipe for Chef Laurent Zirotti's White Chocolate and Strawberry Bread Pudding, visit us wagrown.com.

Vietnam, Mexico, Japan, the Netherlands.

It doesn't matter where you are.

Washington's produce is feeding people all over the world.

That's it for this episode of "Washington Grown."

We'll see you next time.