A Publication of Pacific Coast Farmers’ Market Association May 2015 Market Thymes In This Issue • May Days at the Market • Sweet California Cherries • Fava Beans • Spring Flavors in a Jar • May Recipes • Baby Root Vegetables • California Avocados • A New Vision for PCFMA Cherries from Lujan Farms May Days at the Market What’s in Season Cherries, blueberries, fava beans, peas, and other late spring fruits and vegetables are now at your farmers’ market. Even with the continuing California drought, the produce is still amazing. Fruit: Apricots, cherries, blackberries, blueberries, nectarines, oranges, peaches, raspberries, strawberries. • Right now, avocados are at their best, from Sir Prize and Fuerte to Hass and other varieties. Spring baby vegetable are here, full of flavor and texture. Berries are plentiful - plump blueberries, strawberries, raspberries and blackberries. Fava beans, English peas, snap peas, spring onions, artichokes, and lettuce cover the farmers’ market tables in green. Fresh herbs like basil, cilantro, and rosemary are appearing. • Capture the flavors of spring by canning some pickled asparagus or baby onions; make some cherry or berry jam; or even make your own giardiniera (pickled carrots, cauliflower, celery). You’ll enjoy spring all over in the coming months. • A new mission and vision statement sustains PCFMA’s core commitment to California farmers and their ultimate success. Find out more on the back page. Vegetables: Artichokes, asparagus, beets, bok choy, broccoli, cabbage, carrots, cauliflower, celery, celeriac, chard, garlic, endive, fava beans, herbs, kale, kohlrabi, leeks, lettuce, mushrooms, onions, parsnips, peas, potatoes, radishes, spinach, summer squash, sweet potatoes, turnips. Other Market Products: Cut flowers, dried fruits and nuts, pure local honey, olive oils and balsamic vinegars, bakery items, hot gourmet foods. Pacific Coast Farmers’ Market Association Our Mission: We empower California farmers to be enormously successful in Bay Area communities. Sweet California Cherries Fresh sweet cherries have come to the farmers’ market. The season is typically very short, early May to the end of June, so enjoy them now while they’re in season. California is home to over 600 cherry growers, farming over 26,000 acres throughout the state where nutrient-rich soil, sunny days and mild nights. California grows mostly sweet cherries as opposed to tart or sour cherries grown in Michigan and the Pacific Northwest states, with Bing cherries having the most acreage. But small farmers grow a nice variety of other cherries with subtle taste differences, varieties that you won’t see in any supermarket! They come from Brentwood, Lodi, Stockton, Linden, down towards Gilroy and Hollister, and other northern California valleys. Try a bag of each and see which ones you like the best! Bing cherries are the leading sweet cherry. They are firm, juicy, large, and a deep mahogany red when ripe. They have a distinctive heart shape. Bings are intensely sweet, with a vibrant flavor. Rainier cherries are yellow inside and out, with just a bit of red blush on them, quite large, sweet and firm. Burlat cherries are an early variety, arriving in the markets in May, and have a mild sweet flavor. It is a large, meaty cherry, great for snacking. Brooks cherries are a large, uniform, dark red fruit. Flesh is firm and crisp with variable shades of red and pink. The stone is nearly free. This cherry works well for canning and baking. Fava Beans Spring Flavors in a Jar Young fava beans are perfect right now. Shelling them can be time consuming but worth the effort for the delicious beans inside. This is a great time of year to do a little canning and preserving. Get out the big canning pot, some jars, and lots of fresh spring produce and you’re ready to preserve some of spring’s best fruits and vegetables. First, bring a pot of water to a boil before you start opening the pods. Break open the bean pods. Sometimes you can slide your finger along one side, opening the seam as you would a zipper, but other times you just have to break the pod apart in pieces. Once the water is boiling, blanch the favas in the boiling water for one minute, then scoop them out and plunge them into a bowl of ice water. This will loosen the skins for easier removal. Favas have one wider, slightly flattened end with a scar where it was attached to the shell. Grasp the fava between your fingers with the scar facing up, and with the thumbnail of your other hand, tear into the scar end and peel back. Pinch gently and the fava will slide out. These early spring favas do not need the skin surrounding the bean removed. Later in the season you will want to peel off the membrane from older favas for a milder flavor. How about a nice chianti with your favas? You can make yummy cherry jam, but how about a twist on the old jam recipe and make some blueberry coriander jam? Or strawberry peach spread? Or apricot basil jam? Preserve fresh Blenheim apricot halves or can some cherry pie filling. Pickling is an easy way to preserve spring veggies. Asparagus lends itself well to pickling. Make your own pickled pearl onions or garlicky mushrooms. Pickling cucumbers should be arriving soon for your own dill pickles. Green beans are easy to pickle, too. PCFMA will be offering canning demonstrations this summer. Sara Haston of PCFMA’s Cookin’ the Market will be at the following locations with interesting canning recipes, tips and tricks: May 5th: Concord Farmers’ Market. June 7th & July 5th: Jack London Square Farmers’ Market. New Year Ahead May Recipes Roasted Baby Spring Vegetables Braised Young Favas • 1 large bunch baby carrots, cleaned, trimmed, and cut lengthwise • 12 to 14 pearl onions, peeled, left whole • 6 baby zucchini, trimmed and sliced lengthwise • 6 baby yellow squash, trimmed and sliced lengthwise • 6 fingerling potatoes, washed, cut lengthwise • 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil • 1 teaspoon minced garlic • Salt and pepper to taste Preheat oven to 400°F. Clean, trim and cut all vegetables. In a large bowl toss all vegetables with olive oil, garlic, salt, and pepper. Line a baking sheet with foil. Add vegetables and spread into single layer. Roast for 30 to 35 minutes, or until vegetables are tender and slightly browned. •2 tablespoons quality olive oil • 2 whole cloves of garlic, crushed and with its jacket still on (prevents burning.) • 1 pound young small favas, cleaned of stems and stringy pieces • Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste • Lemon juice to taste • Cup of water Starting with a cold sauté pan, slowly bloom the garlic gloves in olive oil. Add salt and sauté the garlic, until fragrant. Add fava pods, a splash of lemon juice, water, and season to taste with salt and pepper. Bring to a simmer, cover and cook for 2030 minutes. Check for done-ness after 15 minutes. Add additional lemon juice and zest if you’d like. Transfer to a warmed plate. Recipe: Cookin’ the Market Chef Mario Ishii Hernandez Recipe: Debra Morris, PCFMA The PCFMA Garden is Growing Again In mid-April we began growing our spring-into-summer PCFMA Garden. Gophers were a problem this past winter so we built planter boxes and filled them with good organic soil. Seed trays were started with peas and radishes. Starter herbs like basil, purslane, thyme, sage, and cilantro were transplanted to one box. Lettuce, mizuna, and arugula took over the other box. And droughtresistant flowers like lavender and salvias were planted around the edges to add color. Tomatoes, squash, and peppers will be planted as the season progresses. Keeping California’s Category 4 drought in mind, usable waste water is used whenever possible and mulch will be used to hold moisture. We’ll keep you updated on our garden project throughout the year. Baby Vegetables Baby vegetables from artichokes to zucchinis are adorable, delicate in texture and bursting in flavor. Crazy sweet and delicious raw baby carrots from Happy Boy Farms easily double in size within a few weeks. The crunchy, super mild baby French breakfast radishes from Fifth Crow Farm turn slightly hotter as the season goes by. Also, the thumb size yellow summer squash will grow to be the size of a small baseball bat in the span of a month or so. Nature moves fast, real fast. We at Cookin’ the Market enjoy and respect the subtle changes in taste, texture and size that the season brings and we are thrilled to see this wonderful produce at our local farmers’ markets, courtesy of all the hard working farms who bring to us the best California has to offer. A New Vision for PCFMA For over 25 years the Pacific Coast Farmers’ Market Association has been organizing farmers’ markets in the San Francisco Bay Area to help California farmers sell their products and sustain their farm businesses. Pacific Coast Farmers’ Market Association 5060 Commercial Circle, Suite A Concord, CA 94520 925.825.9090, Fax 925.825.9101 www.pcfma.com Board of Directors Patrick Fabian President Shelly McMahon Vice President Mike Billigmeier Secretary Leonard Conniff Treasurer Narsai David President Emeritus John Paul Barbagelata Al Courchesne Steve Fernandes Vidal M. Navarro Les Portello Phil Rhodes PCFMA Staff Allen Moy, Executive Director Vanessa Bonilla Chantal Boyer Cody Brooks Laura deTar Jennifer Diggs Thomas Dorn Jessica Echols Emily Finkel Stephanie Hadsell Dimitri Hagnéré Sara Haston Mario Hernandez Maureen Hovda Ron Jackson Jeff Jelsma Jessica Jenkins Sarah Kagan Pat Lane Travis Lee Shawn Lipetzky AJ Mahon Sarah Maze Douglas Mena Moises Mena Jessica Millender Debra Morris Eden Olsen Ben Palazzolo Tomas Pascual Michael Peterson Alyssia Plata Sameer Poudyal Greg Pursley Leah Ricci Brian Roberts Stefan Robinson Maria Rodriguez Laura Salcido Leah Smith Chong Thao Ramiro Tovar Ron Ulrici Jorge Vega Keith Wall Eric Winkler Editor: Debra J. Morris Comments, suggestions: [email protected] When a small group of farmers first got together in 1988 to form PCFMA they never imagined that one day their customers would be able to order fresh produce through their computer for home delivery, that major healthcare and educational institutions would have an interest in buying locally-grown food, or that Central Valley farmers would need to drill wells 100 feet down to have enough water to sustain their crops. Earlier this year the PCFMA Board of Directors challenged itself to think creatively about how PCFMA can continue to evolve to meet the changing needs of local farmers while adapting to the changing local food system. Despite the evident challenges of the drought and increasing agricultural imports to the state, the PCFMA Board remains committed to an optimistic vision for California: “We envision happy and successful California farmers providing locallygrown food in vibrant markets.” To pursue this vision the Board also crafted a new mission statement: “We empower California farmers to be enormously successful in Bay Area communities.” The new mission statement, while simpler than the previous one, sustains PCFMA’s core commitment to California farmers and their ultimate success. Over the coming months the PCFMA Board of Directors and staff will continue to engage in a strategic planning process to ensure that PCFMA is well-positioned to adapt to changes in the food system, the regulatory environment, and the state’s growing conditions. This strategic plan will ensure that PCFMA is able to continue to be a leader in California’s agricultural direct marketing system. California Avocados The California avocado harvest is well underway. Beginning in April, the harvest brings us the creamy Hass avocado, while the Sir Prize avocado is slowly tapering off. There are hundreds of types of avocados, but seven avocado varieties are grown commercially in California. The Hass variety accounts for approximately 95 percent of the total crop each year – which runs from Spring to Fall. The Hass avocado (yes, Hass, not Haas) is named after Rudolph Hass, a California postman who patented the Hass avocado in 1935. The Hass is the leading variety of California Avocado and has an excellent shelf life. Other varieties found in California are the Sir Prize, Fuerte, the Bacon, the Pinkerton, and Gwen, and the Zutano. Avocados are a “good fat” and provide nearly 20 essential nutrients, including fiber, potassium, Vitamin E, B-vitamins and folic acid. They also act as a “nutrient booster” by enabling the body to absorb more fat-soluble nutrients, such as alpha and beta-carotene and lutein, in foods that are eaten with the fruit.
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