Tiny, Tasty Pixies Have Arrived

From the beautiful and secluded Ojai Valley near Ventura, Calif., comes the delicious Ojai Pixie tangerine, a sweet, juicy and seedless variety that puts the popular clementine to shame.

As the name might indicate, Pixies are small (from one to three inches in diameter) and have a slightly pebbly, easy-to-peel skin. They are a late-season citrus that ripens in March and April and will be available until June. Most tangerine varieties ripen months earlier.

Released to the public by the University of California Citrus Research Center in Riverside, Calif., in 1965, the Pixie was "a backyard fruit for the longest time," says Robert Schueller, spokesman for Melissa's World Variety Produce in Los Angeles. It is a hybrid related to the Kincy tangerine, which is a cross between a Dancy and a King tangerine.

The microclimate of the valley (10 miles from the coast, sun all day, cool climate at night) has proven to be the most successful place for the sensitive fruit to grow, Schueller says. Enough Pixies were produced to be sold locally in California beginning in the late 1970s. Melissa's started distributing the fruit nationwide in 1999, and Schueller says it is sold today as specialty citrus in almost every state in the country.

"For most Americans, though, it's a new variety," he says.

In the Washington area, Ojai Pixies are available at Wegmans, Harris Teeter and some Super Fresh stores, with prices of $2.99 to $4.99 per pound.

-- Walter Nicholls