Children at the Market

Originally published in the Napa Valley Register on April 22, 2021

I am sure many of my customers remember the days when my son Albie was an infant, and I would hand him off to one customer-friend or another during the Napa Farmers Market so that I could get through a rush of sales, and so they could get their dose of baby hugs. Alas, a day where I would hand my child to someone outside of my household seems far off and alien after 13 months of a global pandemic.

As a gathering place that is all about food, friends, health, and community, it is only natural that children would also take a large place in the culture of the Napa Farmers Market. In days past the market would host gaggles of children, be it a group of friends or an afterschool program, who would run up and down the aisles of the market sampling fruit and choosing items on which to spend their pocket money.

At my stand, a farm stand, there are a few types of children shoppers. There is the child that comes every week with one of their parents and silently holds out the bag to help carry produce, and will whisper to their parents what they want to buy because they are too shy to ask me. There are the sugar babies, i.e. babies in strollers getting covered in smashed strawberries, and there are bread babies, i.e. toddlers strolling the aisles chomping down on a whole loaf of sourdough bread. Or there is the child that is SO excited to be the one picking produce and handing me their money that they forget to take their change. Perhaps my favorite is the child that walks by my stand and sees something that catches their eye, be it a weird winter squash, a goose egg, or in-shell walnuts. I can see the glint of curiosity and desire on their face, and I know that they will make their parent come back to the stand to buy it, despite said parent’s protests.

I still see these children at the market, but not as many and certainly not as free to interact with the beautiful dynamic of food, culture, and agriculture at the market. We can no longer hand each other our babies, or bring them to story time with Hyla, or let them taste the produce they just picked and ask questions about where it comes from. I can’t help but mourn this additional loss to our children’s upbringing. After all, one of our main goals as sustainable farmers and shoppers is to build a healthier future for our youth, and what better way to do so than to have youth as a core part of our farmers market. It’s by having a kid pick their own weird food at the market, be it a goose egg or a spicy daikon radish, that you get them to learn the diversity of food and where it comes from.

One of the things I most look forward to in a post-pandemic world is the freedom for children to learn and play, everywhere, and especially at the Napa Farmers Market. So, you can be sure that once it is safe, you will find my kid running the aisles of the Napa Farmers Market with other farmers market kids.

The truths about farming

Originally published in the Napa Valley Register.

There are many unromantic truths to being a farmer, all tied in with experiences that are more beautiful than you can imagine. Trudging out into the cold night to close up my chicken coop so they do not get eaten by a visiting bobcat is completely unappealing when I am ready for bed. But, while out there, I might see the most spectacular night sky, with stars, clouds, the moon rising, and an owl hooting in the background.

One of the hardest farming truths for myself and my partner is death. Being responsible for so many living animals and plants, and being so close to nature, death is a reality we often face. I will spare you the details of euthanizing a suffering animal, but I do ask you to remember that the food you eat comes from a farm. Be it an animal or a plant, it was part of an ecosystem that interfaces with death every day.

Going to the grocery store, it is so easy to forget that the little pack of seasoned steak you are buying was once a living cow. And the bag of organic greens in your salad bowl? Well, they were probably fertilized by compost made of the offal and feathers of slaughtered chickens.

Human consumption of food, and the farming required to produce that food, is undoubtedly a greedy enterprise. But we must eat! The key to creating a sustainable food system is to make sure we give back all we take from the land, and most importantly, to always remember that you are not separate from the food chain.

Now, you may not be ready to throw your career out the window and devote your life to producing and foraging all your own food. But have no fear, there are so many wonderful farmers that love their animals, love their land and devote themselves to returning to the ecosystem everything they harvested. And you, as a consumer, can choose to meet these farmers, buy your food from them, and in a way, return to the natural cycle of life and death that comes from eating.

The longer I am a farmer, the more vegetarian I have become. But simply becoming a vegetarian or vegan does not exempt you from the heavy environmental demands of agriculture, nor the associated death and demands of animals. In fact, the most sustainable farming model is to integrate animals into vegetable and fruit production. But this model requires more effort from the farmer, more overhead costs, and more commitment from the consumer.

Shopping locally at your farmer’s market is the best way to meet your farmers and support a better food system. You might meet the person who painstakingly picked your cherry tomatoes or who delivered to the animal that is now providing you nourishment. This may initially make you uncomfortable, but the less degrees of separation between your food and your dinner plate, the more you are building a sustainable food system and returning to the food chain.

I cannot share with you all the messy and beautiful realities of being a farmer, but I am happy to be the conduit of this experience. If you want to be a willing participant, then I, and all the other farmers at the Napa Farmer’s Market, will see you next Saturday.

Farmers on the frontlines

Originally published in the Napa Valley Register.

I believe all Californians can agree that “relentless” is the best description of this summer’s fire season. After a brief respite from a horrifying August and September, once again Californians wake up to more wildfires ravaging our beautiful state, and in particular Napa and Sonoma. Although my farm is an hour from Napa, my heart is in its community, and I share the same experiences and trauma from living in a fire-prone landscape.

A few weeks ago, the Eastern edge of the LNU Complex fire came within a mile of our farm in Guinda. The 12-mile stretch of Capay Valley had no Cal Fire resources, but the fire was contained through the teamwork of the local volunteer fire department and neighbors. Despite our farm being saved from fire, we then faced weeks of harvesting in dangerously unhealthy air, with power shut-offs, smoke that slowed our crop production and a canceled farmers market. Of course, all this is nothing compared to the lives and homes lost by so many this year.

Every summer Californians face fire-related trauma, and now it is not just affecting rural communities. For years we ignored science and delayed making the necessary sacrifices to halt climate change, and now it is too late. Our state will burn, every year more hot and violent. Climate change holds the reigns of our future, and we can no longer hope to reverse it unless we are compelled. But how?

Farmers are the front-line soldiers of climate change. Not only does it directly affect our livelihood and health, but we also are one of the main wielders of power to reverse climate change. We cannot do it alone and without your support.

Here are a few direct ways you can help farmers and our environment:

— Buy local.

— Buy everything you can at your local farmers market or at local businesses.

— Be willing to pay more. Cheap food and produce typically reflect unsustainable farming practices and industrial processes.

— Help your farmers and food vendors to reduce the use of plastic. Instead of buying a plastic tub of lettuce at the grocery store, buy a head of lettuce at the farmers market, put it in a basket you bring (not a plastic bag), wash it at home and store it in your salad spinner.

— Learn about your food. Where was it grown, how was the meat raised, and what farming practices were used to produce it?

— Donate money to your local food shelters, food aid programs and farmers markets. These organizations work directly with farmers to get healthy and sustainable food to all people.

We need to become a society that makes real change in our daily lives and in how our elected officials prioritize climate change. We must prioritize prevention over reaction. And we must decide whether we are willing to sacrifice our future for the conveniences of a society that takes more from the environment than it gives back.

To inspire you to come to the Napa Farmers Market and to end on some good news, I’d like to remind you that October is winter squash season. So many vendors at the Napa Farmers Market grow unusual and delicious varieties of winter squash. You can bake these squashes, boil them, mash them, eat them sweet, eat them salty, eat them hot or even cold.

At Sun Tracker Farm we grew seven different kinds of knobbly, weird and tasty squash. I encourage you to visit all the farm stands at the Napa Farmers Market over the next few months and try every kind the market has to offer.

Kabocha Squash Curry

Here is an easy and lovely kabocha squash dish that the whole family will love. Serve with steamed rice.

1 tablespoon vegetable oil

2 yellow onions, diced

2 sweet peppers, diced

3 carrots, diced

1 medium kabocha squash, peeled and cut into 1-inch cubes

3 garlic cloves, minced

1 tablespoon minced fresh ginger

1 tablespoon brown sugar

½ cup red lentils

1 can (13-ounce) unsweetened coconut cream

1 teaspoon soy sauce

1 teaspoon fish sauce (optional)

1 to 3 teaspoon red curry paste

Juice of 1 lime

¼ cup chopped cilantro or Thai basil

In a large, heavy pot, heat the oil over medium heat. Add the onions and cook until lightly browned. Add the peppers, carrots, squash, garlic, ginger and brown sugar. Mix and cook 1 minute. Add the lentils, coconut cream, soy sauce, fish sauce and enough water to barely cover the ingredients. Mix well, cover and simmer until the squash and lentils are cooked, 15 to 20 minutes, stirring every 5 minutes and adding water as needed if the curry is too thick.

Stir in curry paste to taste and more soy sauce if desired. Top with lime juice and chopped herbs.

Serves 4.

Organic versus sustainable

Originally published in the Napa Valley Register

To grasp and manage complex ideas, humans make categories and classifications. However, the biological world we live in rarely supports a clean world of categories. Farming is a complex system of dynamic interactions between insects, animals, microbes, nutrients, soil, weather, plants and, of course, humans.

One classification that humans have placed on agriculture is organic versus conventional. But confining farming to a dichotomy ignores many nuances.

Sun Tracker Farm, which I own with my husband, Robert, is a small organic farm in Northern California. Like many new farmers in California, we use organic practices to meet the growing demand for produce that is not harmful to humans or the environment. Frankly, Robert and I do not care about our farm being certified organic. We care about using regenerative and sustainable farming practices.

Our land’s resources are finite, and farming practices must change to reverse the effects of climate change and ensure a healthy environment that supports a diversity of organisms.

The truth is, organic agriculture does not address issues of sustainability, regenerative land practices or resource management. It doesn’t address whether humans take more from the land than they return. Organic farms can still depend on organic fertilizers rather than soil health to provide plant nutrition. Organic farmers can still use organic pesticides to eradicate pest problems.

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Recently, Robert and I faced an upfront and personal dilemma between the requirements of being organic or staying true to our ideals. An unforeseen pest attacked our entire farm, and within a week our production slowed to a trickle.

As we walked through rows of dying plants and fruit that did not ripen, we considered using organic pesticides to halt the damage and salvage our season. We went so far as to determine which pesticide we would spray on the whole farm.

But the day before we planned to spray, we harvested tomatoes. As we walked through hundreds of spider webs in our tomato corridors, we decided that the lives of all the insects on our beautiful farm were worth a second consideration. After much number-crunching and reorganizing our planting plan, we decided to instead mow and isolate our crops and use a much less effective essential oil-based spray to slow down our pest problem.

Had we sprayed our farm with a pesticide cocktail, we would still have qualified as organic. And this dilemma is certainly not rare in farming. I completely understand and support the farmers who decide to use pesticides. Our society provides no safety net for farmers, and if your livelihood, and that of your employees, is at stake, you don’t have much choice. Robert and I could afford to make the decision we made, but we understand the financial pressures other farmers face and the decisions they are strong-armed into making to survive until next year.

If consumers truly want to change the food system, they cannot oversimplify farming. Buying organic produce does not equate to environmental and social awareness. The picture is much more complex, and solutions require a public much more aware of the nuances in sustainable farming. We need a food system that supports farmers who farm by their ideals, not by the book and the dollar, if we hope to regenerate our land and environment.

As Robert mowed through thousands of dollars’ worth of melons, a praying mantis landed on his knee. For now, we take that as a good omen for our decision and hope the future of farming makes it easier for us and other farmers to farm sustainably.

Whenever I need a bit of comfort, I try to replicate one of the many impossible-to-replicate recipes from my French grandmother. She never wrote anything down, and I never follow recipes anyway, but to the best of my knowledge, here is her absolutely delicious purée soufflé.

Potato Purée Soufflé

Serves 4 to 5

2 pounds non-waxy potatoes (German Butterball, Yukon Gold, Russet, Kennebec)

2 cups milk

¼ cup crème fraiche

6 eggs, separated

1 cup shredded Emmental or Gruyère cheese

Salt and pepper

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Butter a baking dish approximately 15 x 10 x 2 inches. Boil the potatoes in salted water until tender when pierced with a knife. Drain and peel half of them. Mash them or rice them if you have a ricer. Mix in the milk and crème fraiche.

Add the egg yolks to the potato mixture and mix well. The consistency should be almost liquid. Add more milk if needed. Mix in 2/3 cup of the cheese and salt and pepper to taste.

Beat the egg whites to firm peaks. Gently mix half the egg whites into the potato mixture, then fold in the remainder. Pour the mixture into the prepared baking dish and top with the remaining cheese.

Bake until fluffy and brown on top, about 45 minutes. Serve immediately as a side dish for meat or other vegetables.

Summer on the Farm

Originally published in the Napa Valley Register

In many ways, this summer will be unlike any other, and in other ways it will be the same. The Napa Farmers Market will be teeming with stone fruit, tomatoes will be piled on the tables, and at our farm stand, you will find cascades of melons and watermelons.

Food and people who need and love fresh, seasonal produce are a constant. The staff, board members and volunteers of the Napa Farmers Market are jumping through unanticipated hoops every week to make sure farmers can provide for the Napa community. Every week, the market is presented with a new challenge for the summer. But ultimately, we become a more resilient and strong farmers market association.

For my farmer colleagues, this summer will present the same bounty and impossible workload that we see any other year. In many ways, summer on the farm is always a form of shelter-in-place. From May through September, we don’t plan camping trips or visits with friends. Instead we wake up every day at 5 a.m. to harvest, plant and weed, and when we do have a day off, we choose to spend it quietly and at home.

What has changed for farmers is the extra responsibility of keeping our customers healthy. We must adapt to the loss of certain customers and the demands of others. At our farm stand we need to handpick every order for our customers, handle produce separately from cash and change our entire market set-up to meet the needs of social distancing. Every step is a bit more nerve-wracking and difficult than in previous summers, but it’s what we need to do to keep the market healthy and thriving.

So, if you are looking for a bit of constant in your life, come enjoy the offerings of the Napa Farmers Market. We promise you the fruit is just as sweet, the bread just as chewy, and the cookies just as buttery as they were last year. You may have to wear a mask to shop, but once you get home, you can enjoy your food and pretend it’s just any old summer day.

Cream Biscuit Cobbler

This recipe is inspired by a recipe in The Art of Simple Food by Alice Waters (Clarkson Potter). I’ve made it with peaches, apricots, blueberries, strawberries and even figs.

2 pounds peaches or other stone fruit or 4-1/2 cups strawberries or blueberries

1/4 cup sugar

1 tablespoon all-purpose flour

Dough

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

1 1/2 tablespoons sugar

2 1/4 teaspoons baking powder

6 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch pieces

3/4 cup heavy cream, plus additional for serving, if desired

Heat the oven to 375 degrees. To prepare the fruit, place in a bowl and toss with the sugar and flour. Set aside.

To make the dough, whisk together the flour, salt, sugar and baking powder. Cut in the butter until the mixture resembles coarse meal. Add the cream and mix lightly, just until the dry ingredients are moistened.

Put the fruit in a 1 1/2-quart baking dish. Make biscuits out of the dough, 2 to 2 1/2 inches in diameter and 1/2-inch thick. Arrange them over the top of the fruit. Bake until the topping is brown and the juices bubble thickly around it, 35 to 40 minutes.

Let cool slightly. Serve warm, with cream to pour on top or ice cream, if desired.

Serves 4 to 6

Gender equity on the farm

Originally published in the Napa Valley Register

I come from a long line of farmers in France who have surely been farming since before French people spoke French. It is a deeply rooted cultural tradition for a husband and wife to farm a little corner of land together and have children to pass it on to.

In every generation, the woman worked as hard as her husband harvesting, milking the cows, and drying the prunes that are famous in our region. One of the woman’s main duties was to cook for the family and care for the children.

My grandmother had six children and often cooked for up to 12 people every day. While my grandfather was a good and loving father, he was not the one to actually feed, clean, and comfort his children. As in so many generations before, this task fell to the woman.

In my family, my generation is the first in which being female does not determine the role I play as a mother and a farmer. I see my husband, Robert, give the same care and attention to our son, Albie, as I do. Robert will often take Albie with him to care for our animals and farm. He puts Albie on a stool next to him while we make dinner together. He cuddles and puts Albie to sleep, and he gives Albie all the love and guidance needed to raise a child.

Robert is not the only farming father today who takes on the same responsibilities as a farming mother. In every farm in my community I see fathers rising up to their role as father, while still working hard as farmers. I see couples who work as teams, with both mother and father actively engaged in parenting and farming. It’s common to see a father bring his child to feed pigs, harvest olives, ride tractors, and sell at the farmers market. These children learn to be patient and to help on the farm, and, most importantly, they see their father and mother as equals.

While women still fight for equality in the workplace and in society, it is better to be a woman now than it ever was before. In the farming community, I see a revolutionary change: Women today can be both farmers and mothers.

Although this equality is long overdue and still in progress, I do want to thank Robert, and all the other farming fathers, for doing an incredible job raising their children, caring for their farm, and supporting their women partners. That long line of women farmers in my family tree would be so impressed at what it means to be a farming family today.

What Does It Mean to Lose Power on a Farm?

by Carine Hines originally appeared in the New York Times on October 24, 2019.

Image Credit: Max Whittaker for The New York Times

GUINDA, Calif. — Less than a year ago, while my husband and I were picking lettuce, a hot dry wind brought a cloud of smoke over my farm here in the Capay Valley. The wind didn’t die down, and neither did the smoke. For weeks afterward, we harvested produce while covered in the ashes of California’s most deadly wildfire. We cried for the dead, gave thanks for our own survival, and adjusted to a new California reality: Fire will always be knocking at our door.

Two weeks ago, another hot, dry wind blew over our farm, but this time it brought a different sort of problem. Saying it feared gusts that might topple electricity poles and set off fires as they did last year, Northern California’s main utility provider, PG&E, turned off power to millions of its customers.

What does it mean for a farmer to lose power? For many of us, it means potentially losing everything.

My husband and I have a small vegetable and pastured poultry farm. We are just finishing our fourth year of working the land. Like many of our neighbors in this rural valley, we get our water from a well that is run by an electric pump. When we know the power will go out, the first thought is always water.

Several times this summer, when high winds were forecast, we woke up at odd hours to water our crops and livestock, fill tanks with water and do our best to prepare for a power failure. We don’t have the money to buy and set up diesel generator big enough to run our well, walk-in cooler and freezers.

We could, and will, apply to grants to subsidize the installation of solar panels, but that takes time — something farmers have little of. Even with solar panels, we would still need expensive batteries or a complicated interchange between generator and solar panels; the sun doesn’t shine at night but the cooler needs to be cold around the clock during a 110-degree summer day.

This summer our farm was not ready for the power to go out. Luckily, this year’s power outages were short enough that we were only inconvenienced, and we did not lose all our crops and animals. We cannot count on this luck in the future. Next year, we will have to spend money we don’t have to make sure we don’t lose our entire business to a windy week.

For a larger farm, such as our neighbors at Riverdog Farm, the power outage endangered not only the livelihood of its owners, but also that of its many employees. A large farm can’t be without power for even an hour. Crops must be irrigated and harvested, animals watered, freezers and coolers kept cold and offices run. Tim Mueller, one of Riverdog’s owners, had to rush to rent an expensive generator to power just the bare minimum of their business. The time and resources it takes to plan for a power outage adds a huge burden to an already full load.

We are thankful that PG&E is taking steps to prevent the wildfires that their power lines can cause. I’d trade my farm in a heartbeat if it meant saving even one of the lives lost in last year’s fires. But it is not sustainable to damage agriculture, one of California’s most important yet most financially struggling industries, every time the wind blows. Farmers and rural communities rarely get more than lip service from business executives and politicians.

So what is the solution? I’m not a utility expert, but I can tell you what a farmer hopes for.

The most obvious solution would be for PG&E to bury electrical lines in rural areas. This would keep power flowing to farmers no matter the weather, while reducing the risk of wildfires. Also, the California Public Utilities Commission needs to to be more than just a hand-slapping agency. Instead, it should force PG&E to update its electrical infrastructure, some of which was built in the 1900s.

Right now there is no financial incentive for PG&E to reach out to the far corners of California and rebuild its electrical grid, because it is expensive and doing so would not increase their profits. When a fire burns everything down, California taxpayer dollars pay to bail out a private company that should be public.

It took two staggering years of wildfires, $30 billion in liability costs and huge power outages for the utilities commission, politicians and economists to even discuss making parts of PG&E publicly owned. Working-class farmers in California would like a utility provider that has our best interests at heart, not their investors’ profits.

Farmers in California are on the front lines of climate change: We manage water during intense drought and heat, we salvage fields and livestock during floods and we spend months harvesting food for this country while breathing in the ashes of forests, homes and victims. We need government help to make our farms able to withstand this capricious climate, and to help us change our practices so we can farm in a way that fights climate change, while still being economically viable.

Three times a year, PG&E spends a couple of days cutting back the branches of the native valley oaks that grow under the power line along my neighborhood’s road. This spring, PG&E asked if it could cut the trees down entirely. This avenue of oak trees, some over 100 years old, could be gone in a day. Cutting down oak trees and turning off the power are short-term solutions with long-term effects. Are we so shortsighted that we cannot spend the extra dime now to protect California’s people and ecosystems for generations to come?

Infrastructure overhaul is expensive and time-consuming, but the last time I checked it was one thing people from both sides of the aisle agreed on.

Remembering with Food

Adapted from an article in the Napa Valley Register on October 7, 2019

This past week, I spent my evenings making and freezing pots and pots of ratatouille for the winter. This peak-of-summer dish freezes perfectly and makes a delicious respite from winter produce come February.

My annual ratatouille-making frenzy always marks the transition from summer to fall. It’s a gentle reminder to enjoy these last breaths of summer.

October on the farm feels like coming up for air after months of swimming through a sea of produce. We are no longer harvesting in more than 100-degree weather, we don’t have thousands of pounds of melons to pick each week, and the fall crops are all planted and growing. In the evening, we even have time to appreciate the slanted fall light on the hills surrounding the Capay Valley, golden with baked grass and dotted with valley oaks.

It is also that magical moment when we are still harvesting the summer squash we planted in May, the last succession of melons and the newly cured winter squash. I love that all these different Cucurbit-family fruits represent a different season yet meet together for a few weeks in September and October. Here’s some shopping advice from a farmer: Don’t buy a melon after Oct. 15, and eat winter squash now before their sugars start turning to starch.

This past week, I also made one of my grandmother’s summer dishes. My grandmother was a farmer in rural France who cooked daily for more than 10 people. She was the best cook that ever graced this planet, and so much of what Robert and I do on our farm is in imitation of her and my grandfather.

Her style was to never cook from a cookbook, to use fresh ingredients and to always make a balanced meal centered on seasonal vegetables. When I miss her, I try to recreate one of her dishes, which is never truly possible because it’s me cooking and not her.

This dish is a perfect way to enjoy the last of summer produce, including late- season tomatoes (which is when they are sweetest). I make this dish as the center of a meal, or as a side dish with baked chicken. If you make it, you can channel my grandmother’s spirit and add a twist to the recipe to make it your own.

Mamie Galinou’s Squash-Tomato-Pancetta Gratin

Pancetta or bacon, cut in small pieces

Olive oil

1 yellow onion, diced

3 garlic cloves, minced

4 to 5 summer squash, cut in rounds

Salt and pepper

6 tomatoes, diced

Emmental or Gruyère cheese, shredded

Cook the pancetta or bacon in a pan until the edges are barely crisp. Remove from the heat.

In a separate large pan, heat the oil (or use the rendered fat from the bacon) on medium-high heat. Add the onion and garlic and cook until translucent. Add the squash and season to taste with salt and pepper. Cook until the squash is slightly brown but not fully cooked, about 3 minutes.

Add the tomatoes, mix well, and add more salt if needed. Lower the heat and cook until the vegetables are soft, another 5 to 10 minutes. Stir in the cooked pancetta or bacon and remove from the heat. Sprinkle the cheese on top and cover for a few minutes to melt the cheese. Serve as a side with meat or as a main dish with rice.

Serves 3 to 4

A Morning at the Napa Farmers' Market

Adapted from an article in the Napa Valley Register on September 2, 2019

It’s 7 a.m. on a Saturday, and Robert and I are setting up our stand for the Napa Farmers Market. At this time of day, we enjoy the lovely coastal morning fog in Napa, which will soon be followed by sunny skies. Around us there is the bustle of each vendor preparing for the day.

There is always something exciting about setting up our stand for the farmers market. We wonder … how much will we sell today, which regulars will come, what will we eat for lunch (always an important decision)? Early on a foggy Saturday morning at the Napa Farmers Market, the possibilities are endless.

This is our and every other vendor’s weekly routine for most of the year, and in this milieu we have built a community. As I make a pyramid of melons, I can hear Jess from Bailey’s Best and Linda from Pasta Poetry exclaiming over all the beautiful produce brought by Esquivel Farms. While filling cherry tomato baskets, a late arrival creeps slowly up the ally to make a 12-point-turn into their spot, with the neighboring vendors moving umbrellas and poles to help them in.

When I’m setting up my price tags, Doug from Devoto Gardens brings me an apple to snack on and inevitably tells me a corny joke. These are the people we see every week, and they are our dear friends.

As 8 o’clock hits, the first customers start to trickle in. Some of our customers come every week and are happy to just buy their produce, say good morning, and enjoy their shopping quietly. Most of our customers come to catch up about the week, tell us how good their melon was, bring us a bottle of wine (a common in occurrence in Napa for some reason!), or spend a minute to check in with each other.

I’ve exchanged tears of joy and tears of sadness with my customers. They have held my baby son while I had a line of customers waiting, and I’ve, in turn, made their kids into vegetable eaters. Food has built a community and network of friends that spans counties and is all nucleated at the market.

It’s after 1 p.m. and the market is over. We’ve weighed the produce we didn’t sell for our inventory, donated healthy vegetables to the homeless shelter, packed our van and are ready to go.

Henry and Loida from J & M Ibarra are sitting under their tent with everything packed up. Last year, they lost a van in an accident, so now they have to be dropped off at 5 a.m. before market, then wait until after 3 p.m. to be picked up. They tell me that they will sell at two other markets that weekend, then go to Hollister to harvest more veggies for Tuesday. These two farmers are some of the kindest, most hard-working people we know. Last winter was the first time they were able to take a vacation to see their family in the Philippines in three years. After a long day at the farmers market and a long week on the farm, it’s comforting to be with others who understand how exhausting, yet rewarding, it is to be a farmer.

The Napa Farmers Market built all these friendships. It bridges different communities and cultures, and all for the purpose of bringing fresh food and beautiful art to the people and visitors of Napa. The Napa Farmers Market is now looking for a new home, but I believe the community we built at this market has the resiliency and support to make an even brighter future for the market.

With this in mind, I want to share five ways you can help the Napa Farmers Market find a new home:

• Keep shopping the market and supporting our small farmers, food producers and artisans.

• Sign our petition of support at the Information Booth on your next market visit.

• Write a letter to the editor of the Napa Valley Register.

• Post on Facebook or tag @napafarmersmkt on Instagram and Twitter and #lettuceknow why you love us with the hashtag #lovenapafarmersmarket.

• Write your local city and county officials and tell them why we deserve their attention.

Thank you again to our wonderful Napa Farmers Market community.

Today’s recipe is a creation of my own invention, and aside from the avocado, it’s something I can mostly get from my farm or from my neighbors at the market.

Mexican-style Succotash

3 tablespoons avocado oil

1 red onion, diced

3 garlic cloves, minced

3 to 4 summer squash, sliced

2 sweet peppers, diced

1 poblano or other spicy pepper, finely diced

5 tomatoes, diced

Kernels from 4 ears of sweet corn

Ground cumin to taste

Salt

Juice of 1 lime

½ cup chopped cilantro

1 to 2 avocados, diced

In large pan, heat the oil over medium-high heat. Add the onion and garlic and cook until slightly translucent. Add the squash, sweet peppers, poblano and salt. Cook until the vegetables are tender, about 4 minutes.

Add the tomatoes, corn and cumin, mix well and season with salt. Cook until the corn and tomatoes are soft, another 5 to10 minutes. Remove from the heat and add the lime juice, cilantro and avocados. Mix gently and serve immediately with rice and beans or quesadillas.

Serves 4.

World's Tiniest 4th of July Parade

Adapted from an article in the Napa Valley Register on June 24, 2019

On last year’s Fourth of July, the small town of Guinda in the Capay Valley (in northwest Yolo County) hosted the “world’s tiniest” Fourth of July parade. It consisted of a gaggle of children on a tractor-trailer, with a couple of bikes and a golf cart. We all filed to our local volunteer fire station for its annual barbecue and fireworks.

Last year ended up being the most highly attended parade and barbecue, with the most dramatic backdrop. Three days earlier, the County Fire started in Guinda’s front yard, and our parade was in visible sight of flames creeping north along the mountains, smoke hazing our vision, and Cal Fire trucks driving up and down the valley.

The Capay Valley truly has an incredible community, one that is rare to find in modern California. It is reminiscent of the rural communities of a century ago. We are all neighbors, and we all support each other despite our different backgrounds, professions and interests.

A raging wildfire was yet one more reason to gather and support our volunteer firefighters and teach our children how to make the most out of a scary time. Little did we know how much worse the 2018 fire season would get for California, and I can only hope that the communities in Mendocino and Butte counties found the same sense of kinship.

Just a few weeks ago, another fire started in Guinda, hinting at another difficult fire season. My husband, Robert, who is also a volunteer firefighter, went out to protect structures all through the night after having worked a full day at the Napa Farmers Market. Luckily, the fire was quickly contained and no one was hurt.

Climate change, heavy rains and long droughts make our beautiful state even more prone to raging wildfires. How will we adapt to this new norm? How will we protect our homes and land? And most importantly, how will we allow California’s natural ecosystem, which includes fire, to run its course without hurting humans?

It will take the efforts of scientists, firefighters, local governments and higher-ups in Sacramento to find this balance. In the meantime, Guinda will have another “world’s tiniest” Fourth of July parade, hopefully to the backdrop of blue skies.

Every year, I bring potato salad to the Guinda fire station’s Fourth of July barbecue. I love this recipe because it is so simple, and it is perfectly seasonal for early July. The secret is to use waxy, small-farm-grown potatoes. You will find them at the Napa Farmers Market. Choose Yukon Golds, red fingerlings or Yellow Finns that are freshly dug. The flavor of a fresh-dug potato grown on minimal water in a warm climate is unbelievable compared to a store-bought russet.

Enjoy this delicious recipe from Alice Waters’ “The Art of Simple Food.” This cookbook lives on my countertop and is my go-to cooking bible for simple recipes that showcase seasonal produce.

Capay Valley Potato Salad

1-1/2 pounds waxy potatoes (Yukon Gold, Yellow Finn, red fingerlings, red creamers)

2 eggs

1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar

Salt and pepper

1 bunch spring onions, thinly sliced

¼ cup extra virgin olive oil or 1/3 cup mayonnaise

1 tablespoon chopped chives

1 tablespoon chopped parsley

2 tablespoons drained and chopped capers

Optional: 2 to 3 slices bacon

Cook the potatoes in boiling salted water until a paring knife pierces them easily. Drain, cool, and cut into bite-sized pieces. I keep the skins on or only peel half of the potatoes because the skins are packed with flavor and nutrients. Place in a large mixing bowl.

Cook the eggs in simmering water for 9 minutes. Cool in cold water and peel.

Mix the vinegar, salt and pepper. Pour over the potatoes, gently stir and let sit 7 minutes.

Add the onions to the potatoes along with the olive oil or mayonnaise. Stir gently. Taste for salt and vinegar.

Chop the eggs and gently stir them into the potatoes along with the chives, parsley and capers.

If using, sauté the bacon and dice. Reserve the bacon cooking fat and substitute 1 tablespoon of bacon fat for 1 tablespoon of the olive oil. Fold in the bacon bits, then serve.

Serves 4.

Consider the cotyledons

Adapted from an article in the Napa Valley Register on April 17, 2019

It’s the time of year when farmers look around and see cotyledons everywhere. Cotyledons are a plant’s first “leaves.” These baby leaves are the plant’s first source of energy and look markedly different from the true leaves a plant will produce as it grows.

In the spring, a farmer’s greenhouse is teeming with all the seedling starts that will be planted in the ground for the season. Every day, more carefully sown seeds sprout and push out their cotyledons to begin life as a plant. For plant aficionados and farmers, an even lawn of cotyledons growing healthily in a seed tray is as cute and joyful as a chubby baby waving its arms in the air.

Out in the field, though, cotyledons have a whole other meaning for farmers. This long, wet spring has provided few opportunities for farmers to get in their fields and cultivate their soil. The clean beds we planted our crops into are slowly being covered by a lawn of not-so-welcome weed cotyledons.

At Sun Tracker Farm, we ideally weed our beds 10 days after we transplant our seedlings. At that point the transplants are established enough to withstand a little bumping while the weed seedlings are still small enough to uproot easily.

But the persistent rain and resulting mud we experienced this spring means no weeding, with a tractor or by hand. Thus the weed cotyledons make way for the true leaves of a mature plant that is much more difficult to remove. Not to mention the delay in actually planting our crops.

It’s at these moments that farmers must appreciate that control of nature is out of their hands. The same processes that allow our seedlings to germinate in the greenhouse cause our fields to be overrun by weeds. Plants will grow wherever they are planted, and weeds, after all, are just plants in the wrong place.

Farming is about staying calm no matter what problems arise and knowing you will find a solution somehow. So when you are wondering where the tomatoes are at the farmers market in a couple of months, remember the late rainy spring when farmers weren’t able to transplant. If they did, they probably watched their seedlings surrounded by an unwanted, yet still marvelous, lawn of cotyledons.

In honor of cotyledons and the abundance of greens and spring veggies at the market, I’m sharing with you a Southern-inspired recipe I invented on a wet day this month. Even the baby liked it!

Greens and Beans

3 cups red beans, soaked overnight

1 teaspoon fennel seed

Salt and pepper

1 pound of bacon

1 bunch carrots, chopped

2 large leeks, chopped

4 cloves garlic, minced

2 bunches greens, such as collards, kale, chard or cabbage, chopped

1 tablespoon mirin

Drain the beans and put them in a large pot with fresh water to cover them by 2 inches. Bring to a boil, then adjust the heat to maintain a simmer. Cook until the beans are tender, about 1 hour. Add fennel seed and season to taste with salt and pepper.

Cut the bacon crosswise about 1/2 inch wide. Fry in a heavy pan until crisp. Set the bacon aside and pour off all but about 4 tablespoons bacon fat. Add the carrots, leeks and garlic and cook over medium heat until slightly caramelized. Add the vegetables and the bacon to the beans. Add another tablespoon of bacon fat to the same pan, add the greens and cook, stirring, until they wilt. Add the mirin and season with salt and pepper.

Serve the beans and greens with steamed rice or cornbread.

Serve 3 to 4

Why farmers love rain

Adapted from an article in the Napa Valley Register on Feb 13, 2019

On the tail of a wet storm that drenched our state’s still-thirsty soils, I want to share a farmer’s relationship to rain. My husband and I have farmed through one of California’s greatest droughts and through one of its wettest years. Rain, and the lack of it, brings us challenges and solutions all in one meteorological event.

Rain in the winter season brings joy and relief to a farmer and life to a farmer’s land. Rain waters crops and the grass for animals. It replenishes creeks, reservoirs and the water table. It washes away all the summer dust and turns dry grass into decomposing carbon for soil microbes. It forces farmers to take a break from outside work so they can rest or finish indoor projects. Rain is a farmer’s salvation, but it is also our greatest source of struggle.

As we know, rain cannot be ordered ahead of time or planned for. Particularly with our climate’s increasingly erratic behavior, farmers can no longer count on wet winters.

The spring of 2017 marked the end of a five-year drought that ravaged California. While farmers rejoiced at this aquatic relief, it also presented a very challenging spring.

A farmer cannot drive a tractor in the field when the ground is logged with water, at the risk of compacting the soil and destroying hundreds of years of soil structure and microbial diversity. This means farmers may miss the tight window to cultivate their fields and delay the careful planning of crops for the season.

Rain is good for watering plants, but that includes weeds and grass. It never stopped raining during the spring of 2017, and many farmers lost crops to a sea of weeds.

Rain also affects farmers beyond its impact on the crops they grow. Rain turns a field to mud that pulls off our boots when we try to harvest. When someone asks if we can work in the field when it rains, we answer, “We can get in the field. The question is whether we can get out.”

Rain can also hurt our sales at a farmer’s market, as most consumers are sunny-day shoppers. Despite the rain, a farmer will still spend a day harvesting and prepping for a market, wake at dawn, stand in the cold rain all day, and only make half the money he or she would have made on a sunny day.

With all these challenges, you may wonder how farmers ever could love rain. But we still do. Farmers don’t become farmers because it is easy; we do it because it brings us closer to the earth and its temperamental seasons. So when the first rain of the season comes, you’ll see farmers running outside in a T-shirt with a big smile on their face.

I am sharing a recipe for a hearty and healthy soup you can make on a cold, wet day. You can find many of the ingredients at the Napa Farmers Market. And if it’s raining on market day, please remember how much the farmers and other market vendors appreciate your support.

Mushroom-Spinach Soup with Cinnamon, Coriander and Cumin

This recipe by Melissa Clark is adapted from The New York Times.

6 tablespoons unsalted butter

1-1⁄4 pounds mixed mushrooms (such as cremini, oyster, chanterelles and shiitake), chopped

1⁄2 pound shallots, finely diced

4 carrots, chopped

2 teaspoons chopped fresh thyme

1-1⁄2 teaspoons ground cumin

1 teaspoon ground coriander

3⁄4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Pinch ground allspice

5 cups water or broth

2 1⁄2 teaspoons kosher salt, more to taste

1 teaspoon black pepper

5 ounces spinach

Fresh lime juice, to taste

Plain yogurt, for serving (optional)

Heat 3 tablespoons butter or oil in a large pot over medium-high heat. Add half of the mushrooms, half of the shallots and half of the carrots. Cook, stirring occasionally, until most of the liquid has evaporated and the mushrooms are well browned, 10 to 12 minutes. Transfer the vegetables to a bowl and repeat with the remaining butter, mushrooms, shallots and carrots.

Return all the vegetables to the pot and stir in the tomato paste, thyme, cumin, coriander, cinnamon and allspice. Cook until fragrant, about 1 minute.

Stir in the water or broth, salt and pepper. Bring to a simmer over medium heat and cook gently for 20 minutes. Stir in the spinach and cook until just wilted, 1 to 2 minutes.

Using an immersion blender or food processor, coarsely purée the soup. Add lime juice to taste. Thin with water as needed. Taste and adjust the seasoning, if necessary. Reheat to serve, topping each portion with dollops of yogurt if you like.

Serves 6.