Field notes: Coastside Farmers Market

Imagine my embarrassment when I discovered - way, way, way after I hit the "send" button last week - that I had the dates all wrong for the Senior Coastsider "Clean Out Your Medicine Cabinet" event.  It was not last week, no, no.  It is scheduled for August 15th , with another opportunity on September 12th to rid yourself of the trouble and hazard of having ( or having your parents, older neighbors or ill friends having ) a confusing stash of expired or outdated medicines. 

So clean out those cabinets in the coming weeks - and if you run across excess toiletries ( unopened) from all your travels, or lovely but not-your-type guest soaps that your Auntie Wilma sends every year, why bring them on down the Market on July 25th and donate them to Puente de la Costa Sur.  You’ll have a tidier home, and Puente will make certain to get those very useful items to the hardworking men and women of our coastal community who often are in the untenable position of having to chose between being clean or being hungry. 

While you’re in the clean-out-the-corners mode, should you discover an excess of bicycles in good working order that are not being used, sheets, towels or other household linens, why the folks at Puente can use those as well.  I’ll have a few of their Wish Lists on hand tomorrow, so swing by and get one if you like.

To prepare yourself for or recover from a whirlwind of domestic reclamation, pick up some berries this week, why doncha?  They are chockablock with vitamins and fiber galore to give you the requisite zip, vim and vigor to make short work of tedious tasks. There are many kinds at the Markets these days, ( berries, that is, though we have no shortage of tedious task to deal with - ever spend an hour of your Saturday picking up toothpicks off of asphalt?) and all are at their peak of lush yumminess.  Of course, I could provoke you to pie, but instead, as homage to the unlikely but powerful combinations of occurrences going on in the world, I suggest you try something different.

Pile a chopping of sweet white onion with tangy strawberries and a splash of snazzy vinegar on to a little medallion of Harley Farms chevre and astonish the unsuspecting.  Macerate some blackberries in port with a cracking of black pepper and spoon it over ( I am not kidding here) vanilla bean ice cream and drift toward the divine.  Raspberries and Eda’s Arugula were made for each other, especially so when a accompanied by a snipping of chives and some of Aaron’s almonds, chopped, if you don’t mind, then toasted in a dry pan till brown, then the pan comes of the stove, an ample blast of Big Paw’s olive oil goes in, the chives are allowed to melt in the oil for just a bit before adding a soupcon of your best balsamic vinegar and then spooning the whole glorious mess onto the greens and berries, that await anxiously in a deep stoneware bowl made by hand by one of the mysterious MoonTown potters. Serve with a rough chunk of wooly baguette alongside a chicken roasted with peaches and sage stuffed under the skin and I may swoon yet. Or, better still, clean out the linen closet.  Stranger things have been known to happen.

This week we thank The Friends of the Farmers Market for making it possible to have the HEAL Project Garden at the Market this weekend, and to Timberlake- Forrest for paying the rent for the Spindrift Players on Wednesday.  And thanks to sponsors past and present Absolute Flooring and Huck Finn for the support that allows us to invite outstanding performers like Rick Bartow and Barbara Turrill to perform both on Saturday in Half Moon Bay for Tour Des Fleurs crowd and you, the Market Faithful, and once again in Pacifica on Wednesday.

Thanks a Bushel and a Bunch - and Yay! Go! to the Pacifica Relay for LIfe Team this weekend!  The Half Moon Bay contingent will be inspired by your performance as the South of the Slide’ers get set for their event in early August -

Erin

Erin Tormey
Coastside Farmers Markets

May to December
In Half Moon Bay @ Shoreline Station
Saturdays, 9 am to 1 pm •
In Pacifica @ Rockaway Beach
Wednesdays, 2:30 -6:30pm