Oct 22
2010

POM Wonderful 2010 Harvest Tour

in Food Ninja, Travel

Pillsbury Crescent Finalist smallHave you voted yet today? You can vote once every day between now and December 31st! Help me win the title of favorite Crescent Cook and be entered for the chance to win $5,000! (See more voting details at the end of this post.)* Oh, and y’all better be entering our awesome Food Ninja Contest now, ya hear?!? PLUS, the Food Ninja store is open, so you can go grab your Food Ninja swag and show off how awesome you are!

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Last week I flew up to Fresno, CA for the POM Wonderful 2010 Harvest Tour.

POM Wonderful 2010 Harvest Tour

Not only was my time spent in Fresno fun, delicious, and educational, but I had the treat of spending the days with a group of amazing people.

POM Wonderful 2010 Harvest Tour Group

Blogging is often a solitary activity, but with a little bit of effort and attending events such as this one, you can find yourself enveloped in a wonderful community of talented people who love food as much as you do. It’s also nice not to be the only person taking pictures of their food!

Bloggers at a dinner

I was lucky to spend several days with these amazing bloggers, as well as Andrea and Mike from POM Wonderful:

The POM Wonderful 2010 Harvest Tour started with dinner on Thursday, October 14th and ended with lunch on Saturday, October 15th.  The time in between was crammed full of socializing, eating, and, of course, pomegranates!  Pomegranate season started a little over a week ago and so we enjoyed getting to celebrate the harvest season.  On Friday we toured the POM Plant.  This is where millions of pomegranates are delivered, sorted, juiced, and bottled.

POM Plant Tour

Not only did we get to see the whole process, but we got to feast on tons of treats, including the soon to be released LITE POM juice!!  The pomegranate dragon fruit flavor was definitely my favorite.

Treats at the POM Plant

I’ll be telling you all about how pomegranates go from blossom to bottle in an upcoming post.  It’s a fascinating process!

Pomegranates from Blossom to Bottle

That evening we were treated to a meal, created just for our group, at Fleming’s Steakhouse.

POM Harvest Dinner Table

We were spoiled with a warm spinach salad topped with goat cheese, pancetta, and fresh pomegranate arils.  For our main course we were given 3 options.  I chose to have the petite filet topped with bleu cheese and drizzled with a pomegranate reduction.  With the main dish we had three different sides—creamed spinach, potatoes baked with cream, jalapenos, and cheddar cheese, and sauteed mushrooms with garlic.  We ended the meal with a pomegranate infused creme brulee topped with fresh pomegranate arils.  They also brought out some chocolate lava cakes with ice cream.

Pomegranate Harvest Dinner at Fleming's

On Saturday we took two small planes and flew out to POM’s 18,000 acres of pomegranate orchards, near Bakersfield, CA.

Flying to the orchards

We spent the morning admiring the gorgeous trees, bowed down with their heavy ruby colored globes, learning about the growing and harvesting process, picking as many ripe pomegranates that our bags could hold, and even getting to pick ripe almonds!

Visiting the pomegranate orchards and almond orchards

After the orchard tour, most of the group left.  My friend Jen (Devour the World) drove up from L.A. and joined those of us still in town (Nicole, Olga, and Paula) for an evening of sushi, socializing, and Paula’s first taste of an In-N-Out hamburger.

Sushi Fun

The trip was wonderful.  I came away feeling refreshed, inspired, and with a new respect for the pomegranate.

Blogger Fun

I also came away with a severe addiction to pomegranate arils mixed with Nutella. This is ALL Paula’s fault. She brought “pocket Nutella” to the event and discovered that mixing the arils into it was divine.

Pomegranate Arils + Nutella = Addictive Bliss

I’ll play this post out with a little video of some Food Ninja moments from the trip.  See, if I can make an embarrassing Food Ninja video, so can you!

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{ 14 comments… read them below or add one }

vanessa joie October 23, 2010 at 8:09 am

Oh man – looks like fun! I LOVE pomegranates so much.

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Christy October 23, 2010 at 8:42 am

I LOVE IT!!! Great pics and a wonderful behind-the-scenes view of the POM world. My all-time favorite has to be the video though. LOL

Looks like ya’ll had a blast!

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Roberta October 23, 2010 at 8:57 am

I just love the photo of you all taking photos of your food…lol Looks like you had a great time…thanks for sharing.

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Liren October 23, 2010 at 9:18 am

Love the video! And love the picture of you, Paula and Olga on your laptops (I think you have the same one as my hubs – that HUGE HP?).

Rachael, you are too cute, and I’m so glad that I had a chance to meet you last weekend – you guys are just so awesome :) Your ninja skills rock, and I bow down to Paula for carrying pocket Nutella in her purse – that is true #foodninja thinking!

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Andrea@POM October 23, 2010 at 9:24 am

It was an awesome experience for me, as a POM-ite, to be included in your world, learn, experience, and community. We all learned equally and had an amazing time, win-win!!

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Damaris October 23, 2010 at 9:43 am

the small plane part sounds like a blast

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gina @ skinnytaste October 23, 2010 at 10:44 am

So happy to share that amazing weekend with you all!! Rachael, you are adorable and so sweet. Hope we all get to cross paths again someday! And I hope you get your voice back soon!

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Lady Ozma October 23, 2010 at 12:29 pm

Wow that looks super fun! And tasty. I’m really quite hungry now and wishing I could jump into those photos for the fun times and the good food!

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Nicole October 23, 2010 at 7:25 pm

Great post, Rachel! Love the photo of you and Paula in the vineyard – SO cute!

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Mardi@eatlivetravelwrite October 24, 2010 at 7:18 am

Rachael that sounds like an amazing event – you are so lucky to have been included on that list, though I am not surprised – what a list of fab bloggers there! Beautiful pictures, and I can’t wait to hear more about the POM process…

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Barbara Bakes October 24, 2010 at 6:48 pm

Sounds like you had a fabulous time! You sneaky little ninja you. I’m going to have to look for the arils.

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saltyseattle October 25, 2010 at 2:24 pm

HOW DID I MISS THIS AMAZING VIDEO?????? you crafty little ninja you- i so wish i could have been there getting tricky with my ninja girls- LOVE IT. you’re amazing- sooooo funny. Also, the whispering (and the reason why) is quite clever, indeed:)

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Jennifer (Savor) October 25, 2010 at 2:35 pm

I am glad you were able to have such a fun and rewaridnf experience – now we need to get you to the east coast

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suki @ [Super Duper Fantastic] October 27, 2010 at 7:57 pm

what a fun opportunity! looks like a blast with other bloggers and POM! :)

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