I Heart Farms

Coastal California Chefs Supporting Farms

(Pictured at left, our appetizer tonight at Gabriella Café: heirloom tomato salad with cucumbers and mozarella.)

A request from Sam over at Becks & Posh got me to thinking. She asked food bloggers which local restaurants support local farms. So I have started asking the farmers who buys from them.

Joe would also like you to know that you can get a 20-pound box of his dry-farmed Early Girl tomatoes for only $40 (so you can make those slow-roasted tomatoes I wrote about). E-mail him if you want details, or so you can find him at a farmers market.

See the list with links, below.

Also, check out Amy Sherman's most excellent blog, specifically this entry, which names the top ten list of vegetables and fruits most likely to contain poisonous residue from pesticides. Amy writes: "Research suggests that by substituting organic versions of these items, you can reduce up to 90% pesticide residue from your diet."

The list:
* Apples
* Bell Peppers
* Celery
* Cherries
* Grapes (imported)
* Nectarines
* Peaches
* Pears
* Potatoes
* Red Raspberries
* Spinach
* Strawberries

Tidbits

Pictured here: Everett Family Farm in full bloom.

The cranberry beans I cooked last night were fantastic: everything Joe promised and more. I was too rushed to plan a proper dinner, so we had steamed baby carrots from Windmill Farms, Joe's beans, and some rice with salsa. Logan was happy with all that, and we were happy he spent the entire weekend with us.

Tootling around on the web this morning, I came across a very good article by Michelle Nihjuis, a writer living in the town of Paonia, Colorado. Titled "Beyond the Pale Green," which covers in wonderful detail all the reasons it's important to support your local farmers.

A Great Week for Farm Things

So for National Farmers Market Week, I managed to get to a market on every day but Tuesday up in Felton. Hooray.

Today's market on East Cliff drive was just so wonderful. I love how relaxed it is, and how goofy Joe (Schirmer) and Ronald (Donkervoort) are. Clowns. Logan and I spent over an hour there, and visited with Kirsten and Jasmine for the longest time. That's why there is a photo of Logan with a chicken: we just got back from a brief run up to Everett Family Farm. We didn't see the girls, but we left them Meyer lemons from my tree in the cab of their truck.

Joe suggested that I try the beautiful cranberry shelling beans. Those are pictured here, but the bean pod atop the rest is, I think, a renegade Tongue of Fire bean: Joe told me those are white with pink, as opposed to pink-on-pink like the cranberry beans. He says just to boil them for a half an hour or so, so I'll see how that goes. The selling point for me came just because he was so enthusiastic about how great these beans are. Their "creamy texture and buttery taste," too. I've never cook shelling beans, so that's on the stove now for dinner. We also left the market with Windmill Farms baby carrots, Dirty Girl strawberries, and Everett Farm basil and apples.

National Farmers Market Week (August 7-13)

I have managed to get to four farmers markets so far this week, and if I had been more industrious and wealthier, I could have made two more. I missed Felton on Tuesday and the afternoon market on the west side today, but I did have a great trip out to Watsonville for the last hour of the Friday market. (Have I mentioned before how much I love going to Watsonville? I have, and I do.)

Located right next to the town square (complete with a cannon and a statue of George Washington, for whom Watsonville is presumably not named), the Friday market runs between 3:00 and 7:00 p.m., at the corner of Main and Peck Streets. (Take the Highway 129 exit off Highway 1, at the Redman House, and go inland. Turn left on Main and go down a couple of blocks. If you pass the town square, you've gone too far.)

Howdy, Santa Cruz: Welcome to Soquel

These lovely young women are farmers:  Kirsten and Jasmine. They have their own little parcel of land in Soquel, courtesy of Everett Family Farm (which I have seen seen called "Everett & Daughters"). I'm working on a bigger piece on the farm soon: but first a quick note. Kirsten and Jasmine want YOU to know they are both single AND straight. There are some confusing aspects to being farm partners who work the Everett family's land, and I got to the bottom of the whole business in my recent visits to the farm. Everett Family Farm (aka "Everett & Daughters Farm) is closest to my own house here in Soquel. Neither of these lady farmers is an Everett daughter, nor are they related to each other.

Theirs is as pretty a farm as I've ever visited, and Logan and I enjoyed ourselves there very very much, not only because there are chickens for him to talk to. And a "cow" to pet. Visit their farmstand on Wednesdays and Saturdays on Old San Jose Road, across from the Seventh Day Adventist campground.

Welcome to all the visitors from the Santa Cruz Sentinel today*. Nancy Redwine is a great interviewer, and I was happy to see her post links to three of my favorite blogs out there: Life Begins at 30, Heidi Swanson, and Nordljus. (I am very happy to report that Logan and I will soon be visiting some farms with Nancy ourselves. She and I met for lunch at Gabriella Cafe a week or so ago, and it turns out we are born within two days--to the hour--of each other. Yay.)

"Buy Fruit, Save a Farm"

Thanks to "Bloviatrix" (not her real name, heh) for this link to an article in the Washington Post: Buy Fruit, Save a Farm. I know: preaching to the choir: you don't need anyone to tell you that fruit from a farmer you know, picked that morning, is going to taste better than the waxy plastic stuff at the Safeway, right?

Above, left, is one of my favorite designs ("Lettuce Praise Farmers") from GastroGear.com ("Because cooking naked hurts"): it's available on a canvas bag and several other items at one of my two CafePress stores. (I also have a more irreverent line of designs at GetShirty.net.)

From GetShirty.net, in honor of the August 2005 Locavores Challenge, to the right, "Please God, No More Fast Food." If there is a particular product in the CafePress line you want to order, and you don't see it, let me know and I'll probably be able to create one easily. (My email address is posted on both of those sites, so you can find it when you're there.)

Improvements: Google Me!

Just a quick note here: I spent most of the day learning how to add a Google search function to the site (hooray!), as well as adding some recommendations from Amazon. Other minor additions might be in the works, but hopefully they'll be improvements and not distractions.

The Locavore challenge is going pretty well. Not yesterday, however: we went to dinner with out-of-town guests who simply had to eat at Fiesta Tepa-Sahuayo (the whole reason for their visit). The boxes of tomatoes I saw in the back there were from Tracy, California, I think.

Breakfast was better: I made Mexican home fries with Thomas Farm German butterball potatoes, Early Girl tomatoes from Dirty Girl Produce, and (already in the house) organic black beans, Monterey Jack cheese, corn tortillas, and Buffalo Chipotle hot sauce. I topped those with some Everett Farms eggs, fried over medium. Delicious.

A Pretty Good Day

NOTE: I caved in and created a photo album just for pictures of Logan (aka "The King of the Babies"). I did this as a public service for his legions of fans. Thank you for visiting.

The day ended with a fabulous salad that complied with the Locavore challenge to eat food from within 100 miles of your home, if you include my exemption of "condiments I already own."

This is a plateful of pea shoots with Oxnard Orange tomatoes (Happy Boy Farms), smoked salmon (New Leaf Market), baby carrots (the last from Windmill Farms), and goat cheese. The dressing is the answer to a prayer: it is Seeds of Change's organic Sweet Dijon Vinaigrette.

Getting Started Being a Locavore

I started a little early (this is from Saturday night), but wanted to share a little creation that came from Aptos Natural Foods and Everett Family Farm. This is organic cottage cheese, cilantro chutney from a company called Shakti (in Berkeley), and lemon cucumbers from the girls at the farm (about whom I intend to write very soon, and at great length).

It was chilled and perfectly refreshing. The cottage cheese was the perfect foil for the tangy chutney, which had jalapeños, ginger, and other good stuff in it.