Market Match doubles the value of CalFresh/EBT/food stamps at AIM farmers markets. For example, for every $10 in CalFresh (food stamps) transacted, an additional $10 in Market Match tokens will be provided, thereby turning $10 into $20 for use at the market (up to $20 per single market day per customer).

This program not only expands the customer base for AIM farmers and vendors, but allows customers using CalFresh/EBT/food stamps access to locally grown, farm fresh produce. In 2011, AIM processed over $40,000 in EBT transactions, and that only accounted for four months of the Market Match program which began in September, 2011. We anticipate an upsurge in CalFresh/EBT/food stamp usage in 2012 and encourage AIM farmers and vendors to welcome new customers with open arms and a bountiful harvest.

Allowed items include: Breads and Cereals; Fruits and Vegetables; Meats, Fish, Poultry and Dairy products; Seeds and Plants that produce food for the household. Unallowed items include: hot, prepared foods and any non-food items, including flowers.

The program continues until the funds are used. For more information, visit the following page on our website.

We‘re back!

Thank you for your patience as AIM Farmers Markets took a short break during the holiday season to celebrate with friends and family. All markets are now back to their normally scheduled hours, and we eagerly await all of your faces at the market, especially those of you whose New Year’s Resolution is to eat more locally and sustainably.

Next time you’re at the market take a second to say hello and have a chat with your market manager because we certainly love talking about food! Here’s to delicious food in 2012.

Image source

• Sunday Marin Farmers Market
• Stonestown Farmers Market
• Newark Farmers Market

The following markets will be open during their regularly scheduled hours throughout the holiday season, including Christmas Eve (Dec. 24) and New Year’s Eve (Dec. 31) for the Saturday markets:

• Thursday Marin Farmers Market
• Grand Lake – Oakland Farmers Market
• Hayward Farmers Market

Please see individual market pages for specific details.

Ingredients:
1 large butternut squash
4 medium shallots
2 tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
1 tsp. chopped fresh rosemary
½ tsp. granulated sugar
½ tsp. freshly ground black pepper

Preheat oven to 450 degrees F.
Square off ends and cut squash in two just above bulbous part.
Stand sections on flat ends and use peeler to remove outer peel, slicing from top to bottom. Cut rouned end in half lengthwise and scoop out seeds. Cut squash into uniform cubes to make about 3 cups. Put on baking sheet.
Pee and quarter each shallot and add to squash.
Drizzle oil over vegetables;toss to coat.
Sprinkle rosemary, salt, sugar, and pepper of squash; toss to coat
Roast for 20 minutes, stir, and then continue roasting until vegetables are tender and lightly browned, 10-15 minutes more.

Recipe by Brigitte Moran, Executive Director of Agricultural Institute of Marin, from her book North Bay Farmers Market Cookbook

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.
Cut top off head of garlic, drizzle with 1tsp. of olive oil, wrap in square parchment paper and then in aluminum. Bake for 45 minutes. Remove.Increase oven temperature to 400 degrees F.
Toss potatoes with 1 tbsp. olive oil, ½ tsp. salt, pepper, and rosemary. Spread on sheet pan and roast 30 min. or until tender. Transfer to bowl and mash.
While potatoes roast, in a 6-8 quart pot, heat remaining olive oil. Add onions and salt. Saute for 5 min. Add minced garlic and leeks, decrease heat, and saute until both are golden. Add roasted garlic by squeezing it from its skin and saute for 30 seconds. Deglaze pot with 1 cup of stock.
Once liquid evaporates, add 7 cups of stock and simmer for 15 minutes
In a blender, puree potatoes and broth in small batches, adding broth first and then potoatoes. Puree until smooth. Return soup to pot, salt/pepper to taste.

Recipe by Rebecca Katz from her book One Bite at a Time

Ingredients

1/3 cup dried cherries, coarsely chopped
3 tablespoons chopped almonds
1 tablespoon wheat germ
1 tablespoon firmly packed brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
6 small apples (your favorite variety), about 1 3/4 pounds total weight
1/2 cup apple juice
1/4 cup water
2 tablespoons dark honey
2 teaspoons walnut oil or canola oil

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 F.

In a small bowl, toss together the cherries, almonds, wheat germ, brown sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg until all the ingredients are evenly distributed. Set aside.

The apples can be left unpeeled, if you like. To peel the apples in a decorative fashion, with a vegetable peeler or a sharp knife, remove the peel from each apple in a circular motion, skipping every other row so that rows of peel alternate with rows of apple flesh. Working from the stem end, core each apple, stopping 3/4 inch from the bottom.

Divide the cherry mixture evenly among the apples, pressing the mixture gently into each cavity. Arrange the apples upright in a heavy ovenproof frying pan or small baking dish just large enough to hold them. Pour the apple juice and water into the pan. Drizzle the honey and oil evenly over the apples, and cover the pan snugly with aluminum foil. Bake until the apples are tender when pierced with a knife, 50 to 60 minutes.

Transfer the apples to individual plates and drizzle with the pan juices. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Source: This recipe is one of 150 recipes collected in The New Mayo Clinic Cookbook, published by Mayo Clinic Health Information and Oxmoor House, and winner of the 2005 James Beard award.

However, the Thursday Civic Center market that normally takes place on November 24^th will take place on Wednesday, November 23^rd, same time (8 am – 1 pm) and same place (Civic Center in front of the Veterans Memorial Auditorium).

Beginning on Sunday, August 28 CalFresh recipients who use their EBT card at one of AIM’s  four Marin Farmers Markets get double value!  For example, for every $10 in CalFresh (food stamps) transacted, an additional $10 in Market Match tokens will be provided, thereby turning $10 into $20 for use at the market (up to $20 per single market day per customer).

Allowed items include:  Breads and Cereals; Fruits and Vegetables; Meats, Fish, Poultry and Dairy products; Seeds and Plants that produce food for the household. Unallowed items include: hot, prepared foods and any non-food items.

The following markets are participating:

-Novato Farmers Market (Tuesday from 4-8 pm from May through Sept)

-Fairfax Farmers Market (Wednesday from 4-8 pm from May through Sept)

-Marin Farmers Markets at the Marin Civic Center (Thursdays and Sundays from 8 am – 1 pm).

The program begins Sunday, August 28 and continues until the funds are used, ending no later than Fall 2012.  For more information, see the following page.

Full Interview

Kevin Lunny – Drakes Bay Family Farms

We hear your farm has a mission. That’s rather unique.

We have the privilege to be the stewards of Drakes Estero, one of the most important natural resources within Pt. Reyes National Seashore. I think it requires a mission. Our mission is: be good to the environment and get the best tasting and highest quality food possible to the local community.

How did your family come to cultivate the Historic G Ranch and Drakes Estero?

My children are 4th generation farmers. My grandfather worked on the waterfront in San Francisco. He was in the steam ship business in global transportation. His brother in-law wanted to buy a dairy out in a place called Pt. Reyes but he didn’t have the financial capability to do it, so my grandfather backed him. His brother-in-law didn’t last very long, so the bank said to my grandfather, “you’re the proud new owner of a dairy farm”. He said “great, I’ll take a sabbatical from my job, get the dairy’s feet back on the ground and then come back to the city.” This was in the 1940’s. After 6 months he realized he was never going to go back to the city. He loved it. My father grew up here, and we’ve been here ever since. In the 1970’s we transitioned from a dairy to a beef operation. We were a conventional beef operation until about 8 years ago when we transitioned to an organic production, using more sustainable practices. Since then we’ve become certified organic and are marketing our product locally, taking the next step in a truly sustainable production.

The oyster farm has been in production for about 100 years. Our neighbors who where running it before us decided it was time to go, and we recognized that this is really the most fabulous food production that we have in the park. It’s really the best example of the working landscape. It’s part of our local cultural tradition. It’s a diverse food source in a County that needs diversity.

How many acres do you cultivate between your beef, artichokes, and oysters?

It’s about 1400 acres of pasture for the beef, and about 5 acres so far for the artichokes and about 1100 acres for the shellfish.

How many employees do you have? Where are they from?

Most of our employees now are at the oyster farm. My Mom and Dad run the ranch, and I help. We have one employee and he comes everyday. We have about 40 employees at the oyster farm. Most of them come from Mexico, a lot of them live here locally on the Pt. Reyes Peninsula. The local dairies provide jobs for the men, so we actually employ more women than we do men at the oyster farm. They usually don’t have job opportunities this close to home. It’s great for them, it’s great for us.

Where do oysters fit in the Marin agricultural picture?

Marin County agriculture is 99% grass-based. We have a lot of milk and beef. The last 1% represents row crops, vineyards, and shellfish. Shellfish is the number four product in the county. Our farm is 85% of Marin’s shellfish growing area, and the most pristine body of water in California. If we want a secure local food system that works, we need to have food diversity. Oysters are a great diverse protein source.

What are the environmental benefits of oyster production?

We grow our oysters by hanging them from wooden racks in the bay. It’s a Japanese method that produces a clean, fresh-tasting oyster and is environmentally friendly. You’re looking at 100 years of oyster production in Drakes Estero and it still has a pristine wilderness-like quality. We can produce ten times the amount of protein per acre growing oysters than we can raising livestock on our neighboring ranch. We don’t feed. We don’t fertilize. There is so little energy used to produce so much food.

The oysters also provide their ecosystem with a number of services, including filtration. We know this by looking at the local water shed. The bay has fabulous water quality but if you sample the water coming in from the contributing creeks, some are pretty high in Nitrogen and Phosphorous. Not to say that is terrible, but it is a result of this being an agricultural community, we have livestock in every acre around Drakes Estero. Yet the bay is still pristine. That is part due, at least in my opinion, to the oysters capability to filter those nutrients out. Phosphorous and the Nitrogen are completely unavailable in suspension like that to sub-aquatic life, so they are effectively pollutants. But if you let the shellfish filter it, it converts those nutrients into a high-protein that we can remove from the water. So we’re actually taking pollutants and removing them from the water in the shape of food. That is a pretty special role that any animal can have in an ecosystem, especially in a farming operation, that’s really rare.

Is it true that you refused to ship your oysters cross-country?

Yep. I truly believe in a local food system that celebrates what we grow here regionally. There is already a huge demand for oysters in the Bay Area. We don’t think it would be in line with our values to make the extra nickel by shipping to New York, Chicago or Southeast Asia. We’ve made it a priority to keep every piece of our operation local. We produce our oyster seed on-site and have the only license in the State to shuck and package our oysters here on the farm. After all that, why would we ship it away? We want our neighbors to enjoy what is growing in their region.

How can the agricultural community support the transition of producers to growing organically?

It is very scary and the learning curve is tough. What helped us were University Cooperative Extension’s workshops and Steve Quirt’s consultation from the UC Extension. Give the conventional growers the opportunity to learn because they are there. They want to see their business survive. They want their children to be interested so that this tradition will go on. They care about their land. Marin and Sonoma counties are full of fabulous family farms. These aren’t factory farms. Some are organic, some are grass-fed, some are conventional, but they’re all good people running nice family farms.

I think if they’re given the tools that would enable them to add value to their product they will learn about what farming organically does for the environment. You almost don’t have to push that part. That part comes. Then they start realizing the possibilities. The differences we’ve seen on this ranch have been wonderful. Our weed problem has reduced. We have almost zero weeds and we don’t have a thistle problem because we’re using a natural system. We see beneficial bugs coming back into our soil. We’ve really seen a difference. That comes given the tools to learn how to do it, how to get certified. And if you are certified, how to raise that animal organically. Workshops to show people how you do it is and to gain confidence in it.

What do you love about being a farmer?

Everything. I’ve always loved working with the animals and the science of it. But I have a different answer than five or ten years ago. I love the interaction with the community. We never had that before. We always hear about how great it is for the customer to know their farmer. The way I look at it is we’re really fortunate to have a County of eaters that appreciate their local food. In this big commodity world, where it’s all based on shipping, the connection is lost. Only the farmers that market locally meet the people they are selling their products to. I love that!

To learn more about Drakes Bay Family Farm please visit their website at:

http://www.drakesbayfamilyfarms.com/