June at Your Farmers' Market

Like

Tweet

Share

Richmond Main Street Farmers' Market

June 2013

Summer Shenanigans!
In This Issue Apricots Summer Squash Foodie Festivals Market Highlights Market Events Locavore Cookin' the Market Fresh Approach Father's Day Recipes What's in Season Your Community Market Highlights NEW! Loving Nature Farm: Arugula, Asian greens, basil, beets, bok choy, sweet carrots, fat cucumbers, and lots of fresh lettuce. Watch for their bell peppers and summer squash! MarElla Honey B's: Big jars of sweet local honey from bees buzzing around the Concord area. Enjoy in homemade salad dressings and marinades for summer grilling. Cobblestone Bakery: Awesome pastries like Danish filled with fruit, cheesecake, cannoli, and croissants stuffed with chocolate and other good things. J&J Ramos Farms: Delicious cherries and stonefruit are here. Try some peaches on the grill for Fathers Day! Sweet! And pick up some of their awesome almonds, too. Ochoa Flowers: Gorgeous bouquets of late spring/early summer flowers - calendulas, agrostema, coreopsis, freesias, and more are here. Summer Squash Summer squash tops the list of easy-to-prepare and good-for-you summer fare. A very prolific vegetable (remember all those zucchini your neighbors tried to pass on to you?), summer squash is a soft-shelled variety with thin edible skins and edible seeds, as compared to the hard-shelled winter squash with inedible skin. It has a tender flesh that requires only a short cooking time. It's available now through August or September. And dont forget you can eat squash blossoms! Squash Blossoms are the flowers from the squash. They come in varying shades of yellow and orange, with a flavor similar to the squash itself. Use as a garnish, either slivered or whole, for almost everything from soup to main dishes, stuff and grill them, or use them to add color and flavor to salads. Read more here... Apricots Fresh apricots are now available at your farmers market, a sure sign that summer is here. Gather them now and make some fresh fruit salads, apricot sherbet, or apricot preserves. Yum! About 95 percent of the apricots grown in the U.S. come from California. Many different varieties grow in California, each with special characteristics. The most prevalent varieties are the Poppys, Pattersons, Blenheims, Tiltons, and Castlebrites. The season usually runs from May through July. Look for fairly firm, smooth, plump, well-formed fruit that has an orange-yellow to orange color. If the fruit is hard and tinged with green it wont develop its full flavor. Fully ripe fruit is soft to the touch, full of juice, and should be eaten as soon as possible. More here..

Foodie Festivals Crawdad Festival Friday to Sunday, June 14 to 16, Isleton. Crawdads, jambalaya, gumbo, and more food and drink. Great music, a carnival and kids activities, a 5K run, and vendor booths. Sponsored by the Isleton Chamber of Commerce and Budweiser, Southwest Airlines, 95.3 KUIC, and the Contra Costa Times. The Golden Glass Saturday, June 29, 2013 1:00pm to 5:00pm, 11:00am-1:00pm, City View at the Metreon, 135 4th Street, 4th floor, San Francisco. The Golden Glass is a lively gastronomic and educational event featuring local and international sustainable wines complemented by culinary delights from the Bay Area's top restaurants and artisan producers. Golden Glass is the annual fund-raiser for Slow Food San Francisco.

Market Events June 5: Enter to win a very nice straw hat and some fresh produce for Dad on Father's Day! June 12: Enter to win a big bag of fresh summer fruits and veggies - great o the grill! June 19: Enter to win a large American flag to fly proudly on the 4th of July! June 26: We're celebrating the Red, White, and Blue with our producers decorating their booths in honor of the 4th of July! Vote for your favorite one and the winner gets a free produce prize! Get in the spirit and wear your red, white, and blue, too! Keep up-to-date! Check the farmers market Facebook page for event updates or changes.

Fresh Approach June is a great month to get involved with Fresh Approach! Our Healthy Food/Healthy You classes, VeggieRx program, and Freshest Cargo mobile farmers market truck are up and running. Interested in checking out one of our events that is open to the public? Well be at the Health Fair at The Garden Academy in Bay Point on Saturday, June 8th from 11am-2pm! This free celebration will have food

June at Your Farmers' Market

samples, games, crafts, raffle prizes and much more. Its located at 205 Pacifica Avenue in Bay Point right next to Riverview Middle School. Well also be at the District 2 Health Fair on Saturday June 15th, from 10am to 2pm at Kaiser San Jose, at 250 Hospital Parkway. This free event will have live entertainment, kids activities, prizes, fresh fruits and vegetables, and more. Come stop by! Or, find out about our events by following us on Facebook!

Cookin' the Market - Chef Anna Buss Kohlrabi, a member of the brassica family, is one of those vegetables at the farmers market that people tend to look and think what am I supposed to do with this? I dont even know where to start. In contrast to its perplexing appearance, preparing kohlrabi is actually very simple. The flavor is mild and delicious; it tastes like the marriage of cabbage and broccoli with a little bit more sweetness. The middle is crisp and hydrating which makes it easy to enjoy raw. You can also pure, roast, or saut kohlrabi. Dont forget to blanch the leaves and add them to your dish for more kohlrabi goodness. Next time you are at the farmers market make it a point to try something different, you may just stumble on your new favorite vegetable! Look for recipes, cooking tips, tricks, and more on the Cookin' the Market Facebook page!

Locavore "The changing of the seasons provides us with the unique opportunity to buy a variety of fantastic foods that are only available during that season. Seasonal foods offer a natural diversity that we should take advantage of when eating holistically for both our health and the health of our planet. There is nothing better than eating a juicy organic summer peach, vine-ripe heirloom tomato, or sweet strawberry grown by a local farmer that you know by name."* The best thing about summer produce is that you will find varieties of fruits and vegetables you won't find in the grocery store! Many of these old heirloom varieties do not travel well and therefore are found at the local level. They were not bred to travel thousands of miles! Blenheim apricots are a prime example of produce that is found locally. Many types of heirloom tomatoes or interesting summer squash have varieties best purchased and eaten locally. So get out there and try some yummy heirloom produce with honestto-goodness flavor! *Shelley Alexander, CHSF, eatlocallygrown.

What's in Season Fruit: Apricots, blackberries, blueberries, cherries, peaches, plums, raspberries, strawberries. Vegetables: Artichokes, arugula, asparagus, avocados, beets, bok choy, broccoli, cabbage, carrots, cauliflower, celery, chard, collards, cucumbers, eggplant, garlic, green beans, herbs, kale, leeks, lettuce, longbeans, mushrooms, onions, peas, potatoes, spinach, summer squash, tomatoes. Coming Soon: Bell peppers, corn, melons. Pick up a copy of "Summer Produce Selection & Storage" at your farmers' market information booth to learn how to keep summer fruits and vegetables at their best.

Dinner for Dad Keep it simple for Father's Day with great grilling recipes, plus side recipes and dessert recipes guaranteed to please. Plank-Grilled Sweet Soy Salmon Spicy Grilled Zucchini Grilled Herbed Potatoes & Onions

Your Community Grilled Peaches with Brown Sugar Juneteenth Family Day Festival & Parade Saturday, June 22. West Contra Costa County celebrates Juneteenth Family Day Parade & Festival in Richmond, California. Join us for the Parade, Festival and two stages of entertaiment, ethnic food, kids expo, local vendors and so much more. Click above title for more details. More delicious recipes can be found at pcfma.com/recipes.

If you don't already receive this monthly email newsletter, sign up today! Subscribe

Richmond Main St. Farmers' Market Wednesdays, 10am to 2pm, May 8 to October 30, 13th and Nevin Ave. Forward this message to a friend 800.949.FARM www.pcfma.com