's motd Sunday August 8, 2010

[Guest guest]

THANK YOU, FARMERS!

Sunday, 08 August 2010

When I was growing up in New Orleans, my father did all of the cooking. Every week, he went to our A & P supermarket in the French Quarter to buy many of the household items we needed. But...he never bought his produce there. Oh no, my father made a special trip to New Orleans Farmer's Market in the French Quarter to buy his produce.

New Orleans had a very large Farmer's Market. It was tucked away behind Square, smack-dab in the middle of the French Quarter. When I went with him, I can remember my father, Leonard, taking my hand and walking me through this really long building that was filled with farmers selling their homegrown Louisiana produce.It really was an amazing place, I just loved going there with my dad. Everyone was so friendly. "Hey, how ya' doin', Mr. ? You've gotta come taste these Creole tomatoes, I just picked them this morning and brought 'em down!" (All of the farmers at the market knew my father.)The farmer would take a small knife, slice into the tomato and hand a slice to my father and...one to me! Oh, the flavor! Creole tomatoes have hardly any seeds, they're all "meat" and have this naturally sweet taste. You'd love 'em!

Our next stop was to buy some fresh corn. I'd watch as my dad pulled the shucks back from the ears of corn to examine the kernels on some of them. If they were shaped like perfect and unblemished teeth, he'd buy them. And oh, you wanna hear something funny? My brother, Lenny, never touched an ear of corn. They looked too much like teeth and scared him! LOL. (To this day, he still doesn't like corn.)Then we went to the onion stall where my father always bought five or six bunches of green onions. They also sold white onions that my dad and we all loved at our house. They were grown there in Southern Louisiana but were sweet, like the Vidalia onions grown in Georgia. Next, my father would select some artichokes. I'm telling you, they were so big, you could wear them on your head to church. They were as big as hats! In less than an hour, my father and I would have stopped at every one of the booths in the Farmer's Market. The other fun thing about visiting the market is that we ended up getting lots of samples.

When we returned home, my father would place all of the vegetables he'd purchased onto the kitchen table and give them one more look over. My father taught me to really love and appreciate vegetables, especially the homegrown variety, at that early age and I'm so glad he did.Fast forward to the present and here in Los Angeles, you can find Farmer's Markets all over the city. Just like in New Orleans, farmers from the many produce growing areas around Southern California come to the city to sell their fresh produce. And whenever I visit a local Farmer's Market, I visualize my father standing by my side, helping me pick out that asparagus!

Do you have a Farmer's Market near where you live? If you do, you should go for a visit and buy yourself some really fresh produce. I'm telling you, everything tastes so good because the produce is so much fresher. And of course, you know that if you eat five or six portions of vegetables daily, you'll be treating your body to all kinds of vitamins and nutrients it needs. And oh yes, eating those vegetables everyday can help you lose weight, too! Now when you visit that Farmer's Market, do me a favor, will ya'? Please say hello to all of the farmers from me!Love,