The New Farmers Market

Offers advice about farmers' markets for farmers, market managers, and city planners, covering choosing crops, keeping records, staffing a booth, retail storefronts, displays, merchandising, sales, promotion, challenges, opportunities, management issues, and other related topics; and discusses trends.

In simple rhyming text, children visit the local farmers' market to buy fresh fruits and vegetables and then return home to cook a feast.

“Clear and instructive, its recipes [are] delicious . . . Along with all those wonderful fruits and vegetables, this book belongs in your market tote.”—Adam Rapoport, Editor in Chief, Bon Appétit Farmers’ markets and CSAs are among the best places to find high-quality, diverse, and exciting vegetables and fruits. But the rich array of unusual varieties can be confusing and overwhelming. From detailed produce descriptions to storage tips, preparation techniques, and over two hundred flavorful recipes, The Farmers’ Market Cookbook has the answer to every prospective locavore’s perennial question, “What do I do with this?” Featuring a range of traditional favorites alongside innovative creations showcasing the stunning flavors of heirloom fruits and vegetables, this guide to seasonal eating will help you engage your powers of creativity, learning, and experimentation. Recipes include: Garlic scape vichyssoise Potato fennel “risotto” Beef roulade with cilantro mojo Cantaloupe salsa Eating locally cultivates appreciation for those who grow our food. Full of practical insights from field to fork, The Farmers’ Market Cookbook celebrates the small farmer’s labor of love with recipes that showcase every crop at its best—essential reading for anyone who wants to appreciate fresh food at its best. “[Shanks and Grohsgal’s] collective wisdom on culinary techniques and fresh produce has helped to create a highly targeted guide with dozens of seasonal recipes that maximize freshness and flavor.”—T. W. Barritt, author of Long Island Food: A History from Family Farms & Oysters to Craft Spirits “In this handy guide/cookbook, Shanks and Grohsgal offer practical tips on how to store and prepare your farmers market and CSA veggies.”—Boston Herald

“A warm and charming book, where Fletcher’s passion for the produce gently shines . . . Meandering and passionate . . . like an afternoon at the market.” —Heavy Table Introduction by Alice Waters Sporting a gorgeous new cover, Fresh from the Farmers’ Market just got a little fresher. With more home cooks falling in love with the unbeatable flavor of farm-fresh fruits and vegetables, there has never been a better time to serve fruits and vegetables at mealtime. This wonderfully useful cookbook is a celebration of market bounty with luscious color photographs and more than seventy-five mouthwatering recipes. Each delicious soup, salad, entrée, and dessert makes the most of the season’s best. James Beard Award–winning author Janet Fletcher guides shoppers through the market, sharing tips on selection and storage as well as advice from the farmers themselves, so readers can turn peak-season produce into delicious eating, year-round. “This newly published book is an indispensable companion for all farmer’s market fans and food lovers . . . It’s conveniently divided into seasons so a quick glance through the appropriate seasonal section, before you head off to the market, will give great inspiration for shopping.” —Ditty’s Saturday Market

Offers advice about farmers' markets for farmers, market managers, and city planners, covering choosing crops, keeping records, staffing a booth, retail storefronts, displays, merchandising, sales, promotion, challenges, opportunities, management issues, and other related topics; and discusses trends.

Farmers markets are much more than places to buy produce. According to advocates for sustainable food systems, they are also places to "vote with your fork" for environmental protection, vibrant communities, and strong local economies. Farmers markets have become essential to the movement for food-system reform and are a shining example of a growing green economy where consumers can shop their way to social change. Black, White, and Green brings new energy to this topic by exploring dimensions of race and class as they relate to farmers markets and the green economy. With a focus on two Bay Area markets--one in the primarily white neighborhood of North Berkeley, and the other in largely black West Oakland--Alison Hope Alkon investigates the possibilities for social and environmental change embodied by farmers markets and the green economy. Drawing on ethnographic and historical sources, Alkon describes the meanings that farmers market managers, vendors, and consumers attribute to the buying and selling of local organic food, and the ways that those meanings are raced and classed. She mobilizes this research to understand how the green economy fosters visions of social change that are compatible with economic growth while marginalizing those that are not. Black, White, and Green is one of the first books to carefully theorize the green economy, to examine the racial dynamics of food politics, and to approach issues of food access from an environmental-justice perspective. In a practical sense, Alkon offers an empathetic critique of a newly popular strategy for social change, highlighting both its strengths and limitations.

Explores the voices and rhythms of this timeless phenomenon

At Clay Bottom Farm, author Ben Hartman and staff practice kaizen, or continuous improvement, cutting out more waste--of time, labor, space, money, and more--every year and aligning their organic production more tightly with customer demand. Applied alongside other lean principles originally developed by the Japanese auto industry, the end result has been increased profits and less work. In this field-guide companion to his award-winning first book, The Lean Farm, Hartman shows market vegetable growers in even more detail how Clay Bottom Farm implements lean thinking in every area of their work, including using kanbans, or replacement signals, to maximize land use; germination chambers to reduce defect waste; and right-sized machinery to save money and labor and increase efficiency. From finding land and assessing infrastructure needs to selling perfect produce at the farmers market, The Lean Farm Guide to Growing Vegetables digs deeper into specific, tested methods for waste-free farming that not only help farmers become more successful but make the work more enjoyable. These methods include: Using Japanese paper pot transplanters Building your own germinating chambers Leaning up your greenhouse Making and applying simple composts Using lean techniques for pest and weed control Creating Heijunka, or load-leveling calendars for efficient planning Farming is not static, and improvement requires constant change. The Lean Farm Guide to Growing Vegetables offers strategies for farmers to stay flexible and profitable even in the face of changing weather and markets. Much more than a simple exercise in cost-cutting, lean farming is about growing better, not cheaper, food--the food your customers want.