From Chef Lesley Stiles:
Barley with Balsamic Roasted Celery
Root, Kohlrabi and Squash
1 ½ cups barley, soaked overnight
6 cups stock
1 yellow onion, chopped
4 cloves garlic, chopped
1 celery root, peeled and cubed
1 carrot, sliced
2 cups cubed butternut squash or a hard winter
squash
3 tablespoons chopped fresh oregano
½ cup red or white balsamic vinegar
3 tablespoons olive oil
Sea salt and fresh ground pepper to taste
Fresh grated Parmesana reggiano
Toss all the vegetables with the olive oil, salt, pepper, oregano and vinegar
and roast in a 400° oven for 15 minutes. Meanwhile bring the barley and the
stock to a boil and simmer until tender about 20 minutes. Add the vegetables
to the barley and cook for about 10 minutes more. Serve w/ fresh grated Reggiano
Parmesan.
Serves 6
Chinese Broccoli w/ quinoa and Meyer Lemon
1 cup quinoa
2 Meyer lemons
3 tablespoons of olive oil
Kosher salt and pepper
Cook quinoa and when done add a whole bunch of chopped Chinese broccoli and let
simmer in the quinoa until bright green, about 2 minutes. If there is still water
in your pot, drain well. Put back in pot and zest and juice lemons into pot and
add olive oil. Season with salt and pepper.
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This week's essay is from 3rd
Prize winner in the Adult Category,
Pauline Hartman, Walnut Creek.
What the Farmer's Market Means
to Me, my Family, and my Community
Pauline Hartman
I love to wake up on a Sunday morning and
look out of my window and see what the weather
is going to be like today. Sometimes the sky is
a lovely blue with white fluffy clouds, sometimes
a fog down to the ground, sometimes a heavy rain
with wind, but no matter what the weather, I know that the Farmer's Market in
Walnut Creek is waiting for me.
My husband and I drive down to the library parking lot drop off some books and,
with our canvas bags, we wander around the stalls looking for the best and the
brightest. The smell of coffee, the tamales steaming, the peaches and strawberries
and the wonderful ethnic breads and muffins, the colorful and affordable flowers,
the colors of the different varieties of tomatoes and mushrooms from huge portobellos
to tiny white buttons, the so sweet fresh beetroots and sweet radishes, and just
about every vegetable that you could put in a salad, the many sized potatoes,
citrus fruits, too many things to remember to list.
We have gotten to know the people at the stalls and get a bright, cherry grin
and hello as they recognize us. What a huge selection of food to pick from to
last us for the week. There is something different every week, sometimes cooked
chicken, barbecue sausages, salmon and crab. Everything is so fresh, picked early
this morning or last night. Best corn in town! I see something that I have never
had before, and the person behind the scale, cuts a piece and offers it to me
with instructions on how to cook it.
Good for the town of Walnut Creek also, as people come from other communities
to join us with strollers of bright babies, who love to be coo'd at and young
children, sampling wedges of apples and other fruits or vegetables. They take
their time going home and stroll down the streets and visit the stores and the
many ethnic restaurants downtown.
The best part of the market is making a dinner for friends, who exclaim over
the freshness of the food and I can proudly say, "I bought it at the Farmer's Market.
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 Martinez:
Music: Liedstrand Family Band
Managers: Janice Faust & Karen Stiles.
E-mail: mmarket@cccfm.org
Harvest
Festival and last day of the season.
Join us this Sunday for the final market of
the season for Martinez.
First Night Martinez will have a pumpkin decorating
fundraiser at the Martinez Farmers' Market. Come
help sponsor a good cause and give the farmers' a good old
fashion farewell. See you next Spring!
From Karen Stiles, Co-Manager:
Well all good things come to an end, (for a while anyway). Sunday
is the last day of the market. I want to thank all
the loyal shoppers who got up Sunday mornings to
do your shopping. We are lucky to have such great
farmers to support the market and bring us the freshest
veggies and fruit available. Chef Lesley will be
cooking up something tasty and easy with market products
this Sunday and we will have Clown Twee Twee as we enjoy
our last market of the season. Delta Moon Soapworks
will also be in. Carla, the soap maker is available
to answer any questions you might have. This soap
is made with goat milk and/or olive oil, great for sensitive
skin. The
fragrances are outstanding-stop by and smell for yourself. The
web site for Delta Moon Soapworks is www.deltamoonsoap.com. Good
stuff! If you, like me, need to have your market
produce year round come on over to Walnut Creek 9am to
1pm Sundays for you market goods. Exit N Main, left
at Parkside Dr., right on Civic to the parking lot behind
the tennis courts. Hope
to see you this Sunday and until the first weekend in May
2007 when we reopen, hope to see you at Walnut Creek Market. Or
at Attic Child, Arna's and Fred's work is outstanding, Shakey
Hand Galleries, or White Rabbit or an antique store or
a fine restaurant or the waterfront, Martinez is a lovely
community and I am grateful for all the support of Martinez
shoppers and vendors. See you Sunday!
For
more info |
 Orinda:
Music: Leidstrand Family Band
Manager: Janice Faust. E-mail: omarket@cccfm.org
From Jan Faust, Manager:
Last Saturday at the Market I was thrilled to see the first satsuma
mandarins at Hamada Farm. I
love these juicy little gems. They are easy to peel, have no
seeds and are the perfect size for
lunches. That's pretty much everything I could ever want in
a citrus fruit! I am also really enjoying
the berries brought to us by Daisy Ortiz, and I hope this great weather
continues so we can have
them through the end of the season. I've also been enjoying
the pears from Alhambra Valley. Last
week I grilled a few with my pork chops and they were great. Vince
at Rose Lane Farm has done
the difficult work for us-- he has cut and seeded some beautiful
winter squash so it is all ready to
take home and bake. Vince also has some interesting pumkins
in many unusual colors. These are not your run of the mill
jack-o-lanterns. Our music this week is the Bryan Harrison Band.
They are always a market favorite
and play music we all know the words to. I'll try not to sing
along too loudly! See you at
the Market.
For
more info
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 Pleasant
Hill:
Music: Paulette Rene
Manager: Karen Stiles. E-mail: pmarket@cccfm.org
Harvest festival and closing day for the season.
Join us this Saturday for the final market of
the season for Pleasant Hill. See you next Spring!
From Karen Stiles, Manager:
Ahh, the last day of the Pleasant Hill Market. We
sure had a hot spell this summer-115 degrees at the market
and we all came anyway to get the best fruit and veggies
available! Thank you to all the shoppers for supporting
the small farms and local growers. I'll continue my market
shopping in Walnut Creek on Sundays (year round market).
From Pleasant Hill Bart continue down Oak Rd. than it
becomes Civic Dr., at the fire station on you right take
a left into the Civic Park parking lot. I find this lot
easy to get in and out of (with the exception of when
the ice rink is open). We will have a celebration at
the market this Saturday with Chef Lesley doing a cooking
demonstration and Twee Twee the clown coming to put smiles
on all our faces, young and old alike! Again I want to
thank you for supporting the farmers and hope to see
you next year (we open the first weekend in May 2007),
meanwhile I hope to see you all at the Walnut Creek Market
this winter. See you Saturday.
For more info |
 Walnut Creek:
Music: Idlel Frets - Blue Grass Band
Manager: Keith Farley. E-mail: wmarket@cccfm.org
While the cat is away...the mice will play! The
farmers and vendors at the Walnut Creek
Farmers' Market will be participating
in a booth decorating & dress up
contest. Help us this weekend with
your vote for the best costume and decorated
booth! Your vote will give the winner 1 free
stall space this Sunday 10/29.
Daylight savings time stops
(fall back) on the 29th so when you go to bed
on the 28th set your clocks back an hour and
enjoy that extra hour. The market hours DO NOT
CHANGE until the 3rd of December, so until then
we will be open at 8 am until 1 pm.
For
more info.
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FROM
OUR MARKET by
Chef Leslie Stiles |
 As the weather turns chilly and crisp and the persimmons and pomegranates
show their jewel like decorations we see another farmers' market
season come to an end. The way that we judge a successful season
is if there is an increase of shoppers from the year before. We
definitely saw some increases at all the seasonal markets. This
bodes well for the farmers as well as people getting out to the
farmers markets as they are able to discover what real food tastes
like. When you are able to identify real food your expectations
surrounding anything you eat shoot way up and if yours are up the
people you are feeding are going up too. Ideally this kind of philosophy
could result in less what I like to refer to as synthetic food intake
and more seasonal, living food intake.
I catered a party last night for a French wine
tasting. They were pouring very nice wines and wanted specific foods
with each one prepared in the classic French tradition. Well this
kinda put me in a quandary and I had to weigh my options on sourcing
and basic ingredients. I want to retain this client and I do not
ever want anyone to taste anything that I have prepared and not
really like it. In the last couple of years I've started using
whole wheat flour and organic turbinado sugar or sucanat for all
my baking. No one has really minded at all and actually I think
it tastes better. There are levels and depths to the baked goods
that were not there before.
So I have to figure out how to make the French
people happy while not compromising my sustainable, healthy principles.
I used Holding Angus beef from Hunter Holding in Lafayette for the
Beef Bourguignon, organic lamb for the roasted lamb w/ béarnaise
on croutons, whole wheat and local, organic eggs, and Alhambra Valley
pears for the pear Brulee tarts, I even used whole wheat and organic
butter for the choux puffs with fontina and shrimp. Farmers' market
potatoes and mushrooms for the truffled potatoes were a no brainer.
They were happy and the food was great. I felt like an old country
peasant woman spreading her love through food. Felt good.
Seasonal shopping is very important on many
different levels not to mention just the flavors. It is becoming
increasingly necessary to cut use of fossil fuels and buying out
of country produce is not helping conserve that energy a bit. The
task and necessity of being able to go to the source of any food
is becoming more apparent with the recent onset of e coli in spinach.
When you shop at the farmers market you have
a straight line from the money leaving your hot little hand to the
soil on the farm where that food was grown, usually within 100 miles
of your home. When you buy an anonymous bag of spinach or lettuce
or whatever in a large chain, even organic, you can not in
most cases even find out the state or country of origin because
it has been processed with spinach and lettuce from other growers
all over the world in 1 of 3 washing facilities in the nation. It
is like all the produce is sent to 3 places and all mixed up and
packaged. How can you trace that? We all know how long it took to
trace that spinach and in my humble opinion the outcome is dubious
at best. People need an answer and some times accept one without
question when it is provided by a governmental agency.
The same goes for any kind of processed beef.
It comes from all over the world and is processed together so you
can not trace a hamburger patty even to a specific country of origin
if there is some kind of insidious bacteria outbreak. This
is not even touching on the horrific process the cow goes through
from birth to slaughter. The more you buy this local stuff, demanding
a fresher more sustainable process, the more it will be available.
Supply and demand works both ways; you just have to be aware of
where your supply comes from. As I mentioned before, even if it
is organic, when you are buying from a large source you need to
question it. Hell, you need to question your farmers and keep them
on it too.
I choose local, fresh, seasonal and a face
with a big smile belonging to a person that grew my food ready to
answer any questions I may have about their product.
Don't get me wrong, all this propaganda aint just for the
environment and health either. I am a chef
and live by the grill, oven, pot or bowl and
am driven by the taste factor and memories related to specific tastes.
When I find said specific flavors and find myself moaning in ecstasy
because of it you can bet it aint coming out of no big chain but
from a local patch of earth. I guess that kind of thing is what
pays the rent around here as well as for the farmers'.
This is still amazing hiking, walking, biking
whatever outdoors weather. Use it or lose it!
Lesley Stiles can be reached at chef@cccfm.org or on the market hotline 925 431-8361
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