POM is the Bomb!

Ho-hum. Just another beautiful day here in the penthouse offices of ES. What have I been doing you ask? Well, let’s see…oh yeah, yours truly got an all-inclusive opportunity to take a sponsored tour of the POM Wonderful pomegranate orchards and bottling facility in central California. And let me tell you, not only was it impressive as hell,  but I got the opportunity to drink as much of the POM juice as I could inhale! Was it cool? Heck to the yeah! I LOVE when someone asks me if I want to get juiced! And for free? Outta my way!

I don’t know how many pomegranates you’ve eaten lately but the ones at the POM orchard were HUGE! I saw one that was as big as Giada De Laurentis’ head and it was packed with almost as many arils as Giada has teeth! (I’m kidding of course. Giada’s teeth are infinite.) Did you know that the POM orchards span 18,000 acres? The name of the variety of pomegranate that they grow is called the ‘wonderful,’ which is why it’s POM Wonderful and not POM Some-Other-Kinda-Variety…er, you get what I mean.

Anyway, the fresh pomegranate picking season only lasts about three months which is from October into December. Once picked they’re rushed from the tree to the processing plant to be scanned and scrutinized, which determines if the fruit is to become juice or if it meets the incredibly high standards that POM applies to all of its fresh pomegranates. It’s like the fruit version of ‘The Next Top Model’; the ones that make it are perfectly beautiful and flawless on the outside, but sweet and tart on the inside! You just can’t wait to get your hands on one! (I’m talking about the pomegranates here…)

And of course there are those super anti-oxidants within the POM juice that is the real treasure. It’s so powerful in fact, that I’m told most of the pickers average around 150 years in age. I couldn’t verify this because—y’know—most of them were wearing hats, but with the way I was being treated by the POM staff I’d believe anything they told me.

What’s undeniable is the fantastic flavor of the fresh arils that each fruit contains. I like the bottled juices, but they just don’t compare to pulling open one of those massive, beautifully red POM pomegranates and filling your mouth with a handful of those fat, juicy arils! Man, that’s livin’!

Needless to say I’m a true convert. I’m already experimenting with the arils and juice concentrates in my cooking and recipes, and I’ll share these within the next couple of months. Do yourself a favor and checkout the website at pomwonderful.com and look at all of the other really cool products that they have. And many thanks to the all of the great people over at POM. It’s impressive to see the amount of care and pride that all of the POM employees put into producing this excellent line of fruit, juices and concentrates. And when it comes to product tours, I couldn’t imagine anything better…uh, unless you guys could hook me up with somebody over at the Playboy Mansion? (What? They’ve got great articles.)