Children's Event
Museo Art Academy once again engages your children with a specially-designed craft
Non-Profit Groups
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For sale at the Market's info booth
T-Shirts for $10
Puget Sound Fresh bags for $1
Kids market bags for $12
 Proceeds help to pay for the inner workings of the Market, such as the weights for some of the canopies (we learned during a storm last season |
Meet our New Vendor
Maine Lobster Connection
Tim Convery's family comes from Maine, where lobster is a tradition. After moving here, they decided to share Maine's treasure with us in the Pacific Northwest. Stop by to pick out your live lobster. This is one of those unique experiences offered by farmers markets. As the Maine Lobster Council puts it, "The world's finest lobster comes from Maine," and we in Sammamish now don't even have to go to Maine for it. It comes to us at the Market.
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14. For limiting your exposure to pesticides
 My 97-year-old mother recently shared some reminiscences of growing up on a homestead farm on the Great Plains, "We didn't have any pesticides in anything back then. Dad didn't farm with chemicals. He didn't even know what they were." We're not going back to that life, where the majority of Americans lived on farms, growing their own food without recourse to synthetic chemicals. We're urbanized, and we can enjoy urbanization because a vast food-growing system with multiple interlocking parts has developed to support us. That system uses pesticides and other synthetic chemicals to improve productivity, and while this productivity results in a greater and cheaper supply of food for us, some of the pesticides are left as residue on our foods. To measure those pesticides, the EPA sets limits, called "tolerances," on the amount of pesticide residue allowed for each food and even provides us with a database showing those maximum levels, The USDA and the FDA inspect produce for pesticide levels. Imported produce generally has higher levels. Organic produce has significantly fewer pesticide residues
You can find much research about whether the tolerance levels of pesticides harm us, particularly infants and young children, with strong assertions on both sides. To say this subject is controversial is an understatement. Over the years, consumer concern has resulted in lower, more careful use of pesticides among our farmers. It's also one of the drivers behind organic farming. The USDA National Agricultural Library explains here that organic produce "carries significantly fewer pesticide residues" than conventional fruits and vegetables.
King County's "Shopper's Tips"
The King County Hazardous Waste Management Program puts out a " Shopper's Tips for Buying Fruit & Vegetables," which says the following: "The U.S. food supply is among the world's safest. However, if you are concerned about pesticide residues in produce, the Dietary Risk Index on the back of this card shows the relative risks from pesticide residues in selected imported and domestic produce. Buy organically grown fruits and vegetables. If you can't afford or find organic fruits and vegetables, buy U.S. grown produce. Imported produce tends to have higher pesticide residues. When you buy produce, ask about pesticide use. Buy local produce. Visit Puget Sound Fresh at www.pugetsoundfresh.org. Wash all produce with water for 30 seconds." The Market limits your pesticide exposure by giving you access to organic foods, those raised in transitional methods (between conventional and organic), and those raised without spray. All these vendors, as well as any conventional growers, are happy to answer your questions about pesticide use. Just ask. | |
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 Meet the Vendor - Twisted S Ranch
Calli and Robin Halbert from Enumclaw just joined our market. They offer their farm fresh eggs and will have chicken and cheese in a few weeks.
Now there are eggs and there are eggs. "Real" eggs stand in the pan when you crack them. Their yolks are dark yellow, even orangish. Once you begin to cook and bake with "real" eggs, the others just never cut it again.
The nutrition in an egg reflects what the chicken eats and how much space it has for roaming. Here's a study comparing the nutrition of ordinary supermarket eggs vs. farm fresh eggs, http://www.motherearthnews.com/eggs.aspx . What's particularly striking is that pastured eggs have four to six times more Vitamin D. Here's what the Halberts have to say about their
Our free-range pastured environment for our chickens is much better than cage-free because the animals in a cage free environment are deprived of sun, wind, rain, natural food sources, minerals from the earth, and greens. The cage-free facilities common in the commercial egg industry cram thousands of animals into large buildings so tightly packed that chickens pick the bird next to them bald from boredom or cannibalize each other. Our birds run free in the fresh air, eating greens, and chasing bugs.
A free-range pastured chicken will lay a tastier egg with a richer yoke than any other way of raising them. Our eggs at the market are as fresh as the day before the market but very rarely any older than one week. Eggs in the store can be as old as
one year, and 60% of them may be coming from out of state and overseas. We offer a 50-cent discount if you bring your own egg carton for us to fill for you.
We are not organic because we are unable to shoulder the cost of the certification and the feed cost like much bigger operations. We do not use any herbicide or pesticides in any form in or around our animal areas. We eat out own eggs and don't want pesticides in the food we feed our 16-month old little girl..
Chicken retirement
Major egg processors sell off their retirement birds for chicken nuggets or miscellaneous meat products. We work hard to place our birds that are not meeting the production requirement into backyard farms to produce eggs for families. We have placed over 300 birds so far this year in small egg-laying farms in western Washington.
Bird care
As a small farm we are able to monitor every bird's health and vitality. Through good diet and mental enrichment we have a very low mortality rate. This year we have only lost five birds. We may have 1,000 birds at any one time. That is a great average compared to most operations. This is achieved through quality conditions for the birds, a good and varied diet, and lots of mental stimulation that keeps them occupied with beneficial activities.
All of our feed comes from Xcel feeds in Tacoma. We buy most of our food and supplies from other farmers at farmers markets. I estimate that 90 cents out of every dollar that is spent with us gets put back into the local economy.
We will be offering free-range pastured fryers, and artisan cheeses off the farm and at local markets as soon as we have completed the appropriate licensing. We hope to have our line of smoked meats and sausages available at the farmers market next year. |
 Cooking with the Market - Walla Walla Onions
June through August is the season for Walla Wallas, Washington's own sweet onion. Walla Wallas have over a hundred-year-old history, beginning when a French soldier brought a single sweet onion seed from Corsica to Walla Walla. Impressed at how the onion survived Walla Walla winters, the Italian immigrant farmers in the area began to cultivate the variety. Onions in the Pacific Northwest have never been the same. Last month, Walla Walla celebrated it 25th annual sweet onion festival.
How Walla Wallas differ from other onions
Sweet onions like Walla Wallas, Vidalia and Maui are classified as spring/summer onions. The other major types of onions, storage onions, are dried after harvest. These are the onions we buy in the winter - the yellow, red and Spanish onions that are far more pungent than the sweets.
Cutting a Walla Walla is a pleasure, one without any of the tearing, stinging and burning we associate with ordinary onions, a harsh reaction we have to the sulfur phytonutrients released when onions are cut. While the sweets are easy to work with, the downside is that they have only half the sulfur phytonutrients as yellow onions. But does anyone care? When these onions extraordinaire are in season, we can tell ourselves we'll "make up" our sulfur compounds with yellow onions in the winter.
Storing Walla Wallas
Contrary to what we all want to do, we should not store onions in the refrigerator. Walla Wallas keep better in a dark, well-ventilated place and should last two or three weeks when stored this way.
Although some say that freezing onions deteriorates their taste, freezing these wonderfully sweet vegetables may be worth a try. Chop them and arrange them on a baking sheet, freeze, and then store in freezer containers.
Onion lore
Onions are ubiquitous. People all over the world have cooked with them for thousands of years. Their name comes from the Latin "unio," for single or one, a reference to the single bulb that makes up the onion as well as to the way an onion is made up of concentric circles. Those circles really interested the ancient Egyptians, who saw the structure as an emblem of eternity, buried their dead with onions and painted onions on the walls of pyramids. If you want onion trivia and history, here's the source, http://www.onions-usa.org/about/season.php .
What to do with Walla Wallas
Some people like to eat them raw or lightly cooked with a sprinkling of salt. The Vue Family from our Market grills them or tosses them in stir-fry dishes. Grilling or roasting Walla Wallas gives a delectable result that makes it hard to believe one is eating onions!
Grilling/roasting them
You can grill or roast them after basting them with a bit of olive oil, or for faster cooking, you can slice them, flavor them with a bit of olive oil and thyme or rosemary, and then wrap them in parchment and then aluminum. Bake at 350 for 20 minutes or more, and you should have some simple pleasures.
Tom Douglas, the chef of the Dahlia Lounge in Seattle, contributed a recipe for "Grilled and roasted walla walla sweet onions with pine nut butter" to the Walla Walla Sweet Onion Marketing Committee. This looks like one of those recipes belonging to the "must-be-tried" category, http://www.sweetonions.org/default.cfm?PageID=11 . This site has a host of intriguing recipes, probably one for each day in which Walla Wallas are in season.
 Combining them with other vegetables
Since greens beans have been at their peak the last couple weeks at the Market - they're not too big, not too small, but just right - why not combine the best of the green beans with the best of the onions and top them off with tomatoes, which have been at their best all Market season?
2 tbsp. olive oil
4 garlic cloves, minced
1 medium Walla Walla onion, thinly sliced
8 oz. green beans, trimmed
½ c. cherry tomatoes
Salt
2 to 3 sprigs thyme
2 to 3 tbsp. finely grated Parmesan
 Steam the green beans a few minutes to get rid of the hard crunch. Remove from heat. Heat 1 tbsp. olive oil in au gratin pan. Add minced garlic and stir a minute or so. Add sliced onions and stir over low to medium heat for 10 minutes or so, until they start to soften. You may need to add more olive oil.
Add green beans, cherry tomatoes, and salt. Toss and top with the thyme and Parmesan. Bake at 350 for 15 to 20 minutes.
L. Leo, Editor
Articles and Photos - Loreen Leo
Desktop Publishing - Sue Johnston
© Sammamish Farmers Market 2009
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