Get intimate with your produce!
Posts tagged Farmers Market
Farmers’ Market Box of the Week 11/18/09
Nov 18th
Fresh From the Farm for only $20! Would you like to order one for next week* the first week of December? Our weekly orders are filling up fast… Get on the train!
Email Melissa@specialtyproduce.com
*edit- Due to the Thanksgiving Holiday we will NOT have Farmers’ Market Boxes next week! We will resume this program the first week of December (pick-up Dec 3-4) Thank you all for your support!
Farmers’ Market Box of the Week $20!!
Oct 28th
We’ve made shopping easy! Fresh & local – straight from the farmers today 10/28. Box of the Week available for only $20! See what’s in the box before you order. Help us support California farms & farmers!
What could you create?
*please email melissa@specialtyproduce.com by noon on Friday 10/30
FARMERS MARKET REPORT: WEEK OF OCT. 25, 2009
Oct 25th
Food Movement:
INTRODUCING!!!!
PENRYN ORCHARD
Penryn Orchard is a 100% sustainable boutique-sized 4 acre orchard that is growing amazing tree fruits: from rare heirloom Asian pears to eight different varieties of persimmons and the elusive and sensitive celestial figs, there is a plethora of unique and delicious fruit to “pick” from and their season(s) have just begun!!!
Tsuru-No-Ko (Stork Egg)
Chocolate Persimmons - A Japanese variety that is two and one-half by three and one-half inches, oblong, pointed with a bright red-orange colored skin, sometimes with black at its apex. The flesh is red and brown, sweet, spicy, rich and delicate when ripe.
Fuyu persimmons are non astringent, meaning that you can eat them when still firm. Very sweet with a smooth, silky texture
Pretty rounded shape with reddish orange skin and cinnamon colored flesh. Pollination-variant non astringent type. Eat when texture approximates a ripe plum. Lighter and crisper texture than the tsurunoko. Juicy, with a spicy flavor that hints of coffee and cinnamon. Rare.
Gosho (Giant Fuyu) -
Non astringent. Handsome fruit, with pretty rounded shape and very glossy reddish skin. Softer, juicier texture than Fuyu.
Hachiya -
Large, heart-shaped persimmon. Astringent type must be eaten when fully soft. Incredibly sweet, rich, complex flavor. Rich, sweet flesh is reddish orange, sometimes with “Goma” – dark streaks thought cross-pollination. This is the variety used for making hoshigaki
FARMERS MARKET REPORT: WEEK OF OCT. 18TH, 2009
Oct 18th
FOOD DEMOCRACY~
“Food democracy has become the rallying cry of an emerging grassroots movement. Eating local is part of it. At the most basic level, though, food democracy requires a transformation of the food industry, so that workers and consumers can exercise control over what they produce and eat. As the Small Planet Institute defines it, Food democracy means the right of all to an essential of life–safe, nutritious food. It also suggests fair access to land to grow food and a fair return for those who labor to produce it. Food democracy concerns itself with the future as well: It implies economic rules that encourage communities to safeguard the soil, water, and wildlife on which all our lives and futures depend.”
-Editorial Excerpt from the September 21, 2009 issue of THE NATION
Food democracy is also reliant upon the economic and environmental sustainability of food production. Small farming is actually more efficient than monocultural farming, yet it has its economic disadvantages. The reality though, as credible studies have proven, an acre of diversified, regional-specific farming for any vegetable is just as productive as an intensive monoculture. The best-flavored food comes from dynamic and diversified farmland that has made the most sustainable use of the soil. We are blessed to be doing business with such farmers that practice sustainable methods and grow more than one crop. Supporting these farms gives them the economic viability they need to compete with industrialized farms. Valuing food based on cost and convenience is not a sustainable model. Food production and morality are vastly becoming a part of the conversation about how our nation’s democracy functions. Thanks to chefs, farmers, growers and the people eating their food.
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FARMERS MARKET REPORT: WEEK OF OCTOBER 11, 2009
Oct 11th
HARVEST~
DEFINITION: v. The taking in of one’s crops. n. the season when ripened crops are gathered.
Autumn is the quintessential season that we pair the word harvest with. The timing couldn’t be more perfect. The trees are turning. The air is cooling and the fields are the color of a season – a melody of coppers, siennas, cornflowers and pale gold. Now is the time to turn on the oven and finally start to think: roast, braise…slow food cooking at its finest time to shine with the most brilliant farmers market ingredients now available. Here are the season’s early highlights, beginning with a seductive persimmon whose season will only last so long….
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FARMERS MARKET REPORT: WEEK OF OCTOBER 4, 2009
Oct 4th
PERSIMMONS, PUMPKINS AND POMEGRANATES, OH MY!!!!!!
My iced coffees and short sleeved-T’s have given way to hot cocoa and cozy sweaters all in the course of 72 hours. Fall is sweeping in and the quintessential harvest has been bestowed upon us. Behold the beautiful chocolate persimmon, rich, luscious and spicy, characteristics perfect for an autumn menu. Pumpkins rule the landscape, with an array of colors, sizes, flavors, shapes and names – baby bears, tigers, sugar pies and even cinderella, and the pomegranates are the gateway to a long season of holidays and festivities. These fruits stand out at the market and the table, their colors, textures and flavors so memorable and engaging, it is time to start indulging and honoring these autumn treasures now!!! What makes them even more valuable is that these fruits have all been grown and harvested sustainably, organically, biodynamically and in sync with Mother nature.
Chocolate Persimmons – Penryn Orchards
Baby Bear Pumpkins – Rutiz Farms
Pomegranates – Rancho Del Sol
FARMERS MARKET REPORT: WEEK OF SEPTEMBER 27, 2009
Sep 27th
autumnal equinox~
The beginning of fall has arrived and the summer is officially behind us. Pumpkins are shaping up and stone fruits are shipping out. Heirloom apples are filling baskets at the market, as are pears and soon, persimmons and winter squashes. The chile peppers are at their peak with several varieties tempting our palates eyes and mouths. Here are the chile newcomers to the market (each from heirlooms seeds) representing regions and quintessential to traditional and modern cuisines from around the world…
Fushimi Pepper – Windrose Farms: sweet chili pepper from Japan widely used in Asian cooking at its green stage, especially in tempura. Full flavored, measures 6″ long, with thin deep green walls that will eventually turn glossy red.
Negro Pasilla Chile Peppers – Windrose Farms: an elongated, tubular chile, measuring 6 inches long and 1 1/2 inches wide. Dark purple when ripe, the Pasilla’s crinkly body curves into an arc. This thin fleshed chile has a berry flavor with herbaceous tones. Great dried and ground up for powder seeds and all too!!
Sigaretta Dolce Pepper – Windrose Farms: known as an Italian fryer, the Sigeretta Dolce is a slim, crinkly and long “cigar” type pepper that is sweet and savory vs. hot. It has a lime green colored skin that turns red when it fully ripens.
Shishito Pepper – Coleman Family Farms: an old Japanese variety, the shishito is a wrinkly thin skinned savory and mild flavored peppers that is about three inches long. This peppers should be harvested when its skin color is bright lime green. It is 100% edible, including the seeds.
Padron Chile Pepper – Coleman Family Farms: Petit Padron chile peppers are slightly crinkled and grooved, have a semi-matte finished deep green skin and generally measures about two inches long. When small and immature, this chile pepper offers a crisp and mildly sweet pepper flavor. The larger the Padron chile pepper, the spicier the flavor, which incidentally makes it much less enjoyable to eat. Its formal name is “Pimiento de Padrón”.
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FARMERS MARKET REPORT: WEEK OF SEPTEMBER 20, 2009
Sep 20th
THE WORLD IS YOUR OYSTER~
A field trip to Fallbrook Mushroom Farm on Monday was an educated journey into a virtual Chinese forest where mushrooms were dominating the landscape. Long and narrow, screened barns are home to thousands upon thousands of oyster “spawns” and shitake logs. The mushrooms are cultivated on agro-waste (which is essentially recycled agricultural food sources) in spawns filled with rice, grains, cotton, straw, wheat, millet and maize that serve as the mushrooms’ food and protein source. The spawned bags (see picture above) are stored in low-lit raised shelving as they begin colonizing. They are watered from a sprinkling system above daily to retain the appropriate levels of moisture for the mushrooms to grow prolifically. Harvests occur approximately every 60 days and are picked before the mushrooms begin to spore. The most effective way to harvest the mushrooms is to remove the entire colony from the spawn’s stem so that a new crop can grow all at once. One spawn bag can cultivate about 3-5 harvests.
FARMERS MARKET REPORT: WEEK OF SEPTEMBER 13, 2009
Sep 13th
SEASONS~
Utilizing ingredients that are grown in-season is equivalent to celebrating them. Cooking with these ingredients at their seasonal peak is rooted in culinary tradition. They have the power to satisfy and nourish our bodies’ innate cravings and they appeal to the senses in ways that would otherwise seem unimaginable. If you listen to your body and your senses, it will tell you what to cook. Our bodies crave seasonal ingredients the same way we want to wear linen in the summer. We crave persimmons in the fall, blood oranges in the winter and fava beans in the spring. The farmers market is the most natural and true representation of seasonal ingredients. There are no exceptions to the rule. A farmer who sells at the farmers market MUST grow his own food and sell only what he grows. It would be physically impossible then for an out-of-season vegetable or fruit to appear at the market, well, out-of-season. Here is a loose list of what to expect this fall at the Santa Monica Farmers Market and from our Southern California farmers: while some of these crops may be available year-round they are at their finest and in their peak in the fall months of the year.
Allow this to be your navigational guide to menu-making and spontaneous cravings, getting what’s in season locally and just one chapter of living, breathing sustainability.
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FARMERS MARKET REPORT: WEEK OF LABOR DAY, 2009
Sep 6th
RAFT~
Renew America’s Food Traditions is “an alliance of food, farming, environmental and culinary advocates who have joined together to identify, restore and celebrate America’s biologically and culturally diverse food traditions through conservation, education, promotion and regional networking.” It has been cultivated under Slow Food USA and its mission is to develop and promote conservation strategies to restore and renew at-risk foods and food traditions of North America. This past spring RAFT and Chef’s Collaborative (dedicated to connecting chefs to their local farmers) set out to bring 16 heirloom varieties back to life. 38 farmers planted the seeds and then sold their crops to local chefs. Maybe 16 heirlooms doesn’t seem like a lot, but it is a step in the right direction, restoring agricultural biodiversity, strengthening the bond between farmers and chefs, reconnecting with the earth and with our country’s traditions. An heirloom variety is open-pollinated and specifically one which pre-dates the 1950’s when “modern” hybrids were introduced and seeds were no longer developed to come back the next year, which forces farmers to repurchase seeds year after year. Heirlooms are nearly extinct, which makes seed-saving essential to their survival. Save your seeds from the heirloom produce you receive from the farms and put them in a farmer’s hand to plant and keep tradition alive. Support Slow Food USA, become a member of Chef’s Collaborative and continue to be a conscious member of the food community. And if you haven’t seen it already, go see Food, Inc. – it will change your life.
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