Toddlers and Tomatoes: Getting kids from 0-5 involved at your local farmers market

 

Image credit- drgreene.com

The beginning is finally in sight of the long-awaited farmers market season. There is fresh produce abound, and as an adult (who enjoys to cook), it comes easily to be enthusiastic about attending the farmers market. Some kids on the other hand, may need a little extra encouragement to have a positive experience at the farmers market that will make them look forward to its weekly occurrence. Fortunately, there are plenty of easy ways to get toddlers and preschoolers excited about coming along.

First 5 Del Norte encourages all parents to read, talk, and sing to their children to aid brain development and get a jump on early-literacy skills. There are simple ways to incorporate reading, talking, and singing into the farmers market experience.

1. Talk to your kids about food. Name and show different fruits and vegetables. Use words to describe their taste, touch, and smell. Talk about different colors, shapes, and sizes of produce.

2. Read a cookbook to your child, showing pictures to go along with the recipe or read a food-related story before making the trip to the local farmers market (We suggest Eating the Alphabet by Lois Ehlert or Farmer’s Market Day by Shanda Trent).

3. Singing songs is an easy way to make fruits and vegetables more fun. Rhyming can also help to build a child’s vocabulary.

It’s also great to get the kids engaged while they’re at the market, in turn making your shopping experience pleasant and enjoyable! Children are naturally quite curious. Encourage them to ask questions to the vendors and farmers.  For example, “What is your favorite vegetable?” “Why do you like being a farmer?”

Try letting older kids carry their own reusable shopping bag and choose a few fruits and veggies they like, along with one new fruit or vegetable to try. When they feel responsible and included, they are more likely to get excited about the meal that comes from their selection. Let them become involved in the meal planning and preparation for the week. Two-year-olds can even help tear lettuce for a salad. Kids of any age can feel included by handing over the money to the farmer.

Exposure to healthy choices at a young age is an important building block for a positive lifelong relationship with food. Once kids are exposed to new things multiple times, they are more likely to try them (any even enjoy them!).  So bring your kids to all four of the local farmers markets happening in Del Norte County this summer, and maybe they’ll discover their new favorite vegetables themselves!

More New Farmers Markets

Del Norte is well on its way to becoming a farmers market community. We all know the Saturday Farmers Market has been thriving and expanding rapidly over the years. Our Wednesday Downtown Farmers and Artisans Market has become a weekly Summer fixture, providing produce, crafts, and hot food during the week. And now we have two more markets starting in Summer 2014. We already did a blog post last week on the upcoming Gasquet Farmers and Artisans Market, but we'd also like to share some info on the new "Pel-son Market" in Klamath.

Just like in Gasquet, there has long been talk of creating a farmers market to serve the Klamath community. There have been many attempts by various organizations to win funding to create one; and now the Yurok Tribe has come in to help start this market. The Pel-son Market will be held on Sundays, starting June 15th in the Yurok Tribal Office Parking Lot, from 10:00-2:00. That means that every Sunday through the summer, Del Norte will have two farmers markets, providing fresh produce to two outlying communities that are generally considered "food deserts."Additionally, these markets will provide another opportunity for the huge amount of summer tourists to stop and enjoy our area. If you are interested in learning more about the Klamath Pel-son Market, contact Linda Cooley at the Yurok Tribal Office. There will also be an informational meeting for the Farmers Market, held on June 1st at the Yurok Tribal Office parking lot at 12:00pm.

Gasquet Farmer's & Artisan's Market!

The US Highway 199 corridor is a consistently popular road for the summer tourist season and is the only route for accessing the beautiful Smith River National Recreation Area. The hot summer months bring a swarm of out-of-towners and locals alike through the outlying regions of Del Norte County, like Hiouchi, Patricks Creek, and Gasquet. This Summer 2014, visitors to Gasquet will have a new reason to stop and enjoy the area: The Gasquet Farmer's & Artisan's Market!

It's long been a dream of many residents of Del Norte to have farmers markets in the outer areas of the county, due to the difficulty of traveling into Crescent City for the Wednesday and Saturday markets. A Gasquet farmers market has always been a popular idea, owing to the consistent summer traffic on 199, the large number of gardeners in the area, and the tight-knit feel of the Gasquet community. It has certainly been a dream of Susan Stewart, the Gasquet resident who is responsible for starting the Gasquet F&A Market. Susan is no stranger to organizing farmers markets in Del Norte; years ago she was the first person to start a market in Downtown Crescent City, which eventually evolved into the Crescent City Saturday Farmers Market. A few years later, she once again started a market in Downtown Crescent City which grew and still exists to this day as the Wednesday Farmers Market on Front St.

After handing over the management of the Crescent City Wednesday Market to Ocean Air Farms, Susan set her sights a little closer to home, and began gathering community support to start a market for Gasquet residents and the tourists who visit this area. Not only will there be local farmers, gardeners, and craftsman, but additional farmers from Southern Oregon and Humboldt County will make the trek over to sell their wares. With 32 spaces available, Susan is anticipating that spots will easily fill up, and she encourages anyone who is interested in being a vendor to fill out an application ASAP and claim your spot! This is yet another opportunity to increase the availability of good food in our community, support our local small businesses, and improve the public image of Del Norte to the outside world.

Vendors will include Ocean Air Farms, Stewart's Produce, local soap makers, breads and pastries, hand-crafted furniture, and much more!

The Gasquet Farmers & Artisans Market will be held in the Gasquet Station's parking lot, right alongside Highway 199 on Sundays from 11:00-3:00. The first market is on June 15th and will be held every week throughout the summer months.

If you are interested in more details, or want to fill out an application to be a vendor, you can contact Susan Stewart at (707) 954-4010 or elkprairiedairy@yahoo.com

TEDxManhattan Talks Are Now Available!

So March 1st was a gorgeous, sunny, mostly-wind-free day here on the North Coast. I tried to be understanding about our low turn-out for the live viewing party for TEDxManhattan Changing the Way We Eat. I really did. The whole week before had been rain, rain, rain, and then here is this sunshine and blue sky all day long.

But really? If you weren't there, you missed out. It was another great year of inspiring talks about how we can make our food and agriculture system work better for everyone.

Luckily for all of us (because there are a few I'll need to watch again some time, too), the talks are all up on YouTube now! You can find them on TEDxManhattan's YouTube channel (is that what it's called?). 

If you don't know where to start and you like spoken word, I highly recommend beginning with Clint Smith's Celebrating Resilience.

Enjoy!

A Personal Perspective On Fast-Food Workers' Compensation

It sometimes seems that individual people aren't part of the thought process behind laws made at high levels of government. One case in point is the debate over raising the minimum wage. Many argue that minimum wage jobs are entry-level jobs held by teenagers or other workers not dependent on those wages for all of life's expenses, so they don't "need" a living wage.

Here is a very personal, very detailed description of the daily life of a woman who works in fast food and raises two children as a single parent. She is making above the federal minimum wage and works full-time, yet still struggles to feed her family, get everyone where they need to go, and have enough for necessities like doing laundry and buying herself new socks.

If Ms. Lyons' story isn't enough to justify a significant raise in the minimum wage, we should all remember that she is one of many thousands of people in the same situation. Living near or below the poverty line is hard work, even before you go to a 40-hour-a-week job.

Canning Workshops!

Last week, we posted this flyer for two canning workshops in January. We are very excited to offer both water bath and pressure canning classes at the Family Resource Center on January 11th and 25th. 

Advance registration is required and space is limited, so please sign up soon. The links on the flyer are incorrect!! Please forgive the error (we didn't check before including the links on the flyer) and use the links below instead:

Water bath canning on January 11th:

http://ucanr.edu/DelNorteCanningWorkshop1

Pressure canning on January 25th:

http://ucanr.edu/DelNorteCanningWorkshop2

Are New Year's Resolutions On YOUR Menu?

  

Happy New Year! It's the dawn of a new year -- 2014 -- in our lives and in our kitchens. Let's work to make it a great year!

Now I don't know about you, but I've been drawn to online lists of food and cooking resolutions over the past few days. Many of them seem stale, even if they contain good advice like eat more veggies. But a few caught my eye and I thought I'd share them.

Mark Bittman offered a list of sustainable food resolutions in his New York Time column. They are described as steps you can take toward a diet healthier for you and the planet. Instead of sweeping generalizations about eating more veggies, Bittman suggests doing things like cooking big batches of whole grains and beans so you have them on hand throughout the week or incorporating vegetables into breakfast to increase your fruit and veg intake.

Danielle Nierenberg of Food Tank looked beyond the kitchen more than Bittman did in her Huffington Post column. Her 14 suggestions focused on larger food system issues. They range from getting to know your local farmer to cooking indigenous foods to help save traditional crops. (A quick aside: the post is co-sponsored by Chipotle Grill and pushes the Scarecrow video we wrote about here.)

But my favorite single resolution -- and the one I am adopting as my own for this year -- came from the Huffington Post Taste team's list of food and cooking resolutions. Their top resolution is to bake more pies and I can get behind that, too. But it is the second item on their list that really caught my eye: "Cook at least one recipe from all the cookbooks we 'collect' and never use."

Through multiple moves (earlier this week, we realized that, except for 2011, we have moved every single year since 2005), I have pared down my cookbook collection significantly. But there are still a number of them that I've used for "inspiration" rather than actually following a recipe from start to finish, as written. That changes this year! I will be choosing at least one recipe from every cookbook I own and making that dish. And if there are any cookbooks I end up skipping? They obviously don't need to take up space on my bookshelf anymore and can be given away.

Do you have any resolutions in the kitchen this year? Any new foods you plan to try? New cooking techniques or skills you hope to learn? 

Keep in mind that the Food Council will be running a series of DIY Food Workshops throughout the year. If learning to preserve the harvest is on your list, we might be able to help. In January, we'll be offering two half-day canning classes: