Monterey Park Certified Farmers' Market

Thank you Los Angeles Times for including Farmer Mark as a tomato expert in your piece on home growing! Check it out and discover Mark's favorite heirloom variety.

#TheFutureIsFemale has been a mantra for recent social and cultural movements here in the US and you may be thinking okay, but what does that have to do with farmers markets? Well, Canada's The Globe and Mail reports: The Future of Farming is Female! Trina Moyles, author of Women Who Dig: Farming, Feminism, and the Fight to Feed the World, recently spoke with several Farmer Janes who insist that change is under way on Canadian farms today. Moyles writes, "Over the past severa...l years, I’ve been witnessing and writing about a generation of young Canadian women who are hungry to farm despite the social, economic and psychological odds stacked against them and are doing so relying on innovation and imagination." Check out the full op-ed here: http://ow.ly/OowL30jbva4. #farmlife #knowyourfarmer #feminism #equality #girlsrule #farmerjane #forkyeah

In 2009, veteran children's book publisher Philip Lee teamed up with his wife June Jo Lee, a food anthropologist and ethnographer, to launch Readers To Eaters a pop-up shop selling food-themed books for adults and kids that help promote understanding about where #food comes from and the diverse stories about how we eat. Then, in 2010, Lee began acquiring kids titles to publish himself. "The stories weren't meant to preach, or even necessarily to change kids' minds about wha...t they were consuming at least, not in the short term. Rather, they aimed to start a critical conversation between parents and children. As Lee explains it, 'If kids aren't eating salad at school, it's because they don't eat it at home. Where our books come in is in getting families excited to talk about food around the dinner table.'" Others are also beginning to make the connection between the desire of families to learn about food's origins and the need for books about it. The American Farm Bureau Foundation for Agriculture announced this February that it was starting a line of picture #books about how food is grown. It's a testament, says Publishers Weekly associate children's book editor Emma Kantor, to the importance of linking "literacy and healthy living both practices that start young." The books have also been used in conjunction with the California Library Association's Lunch at the Library program, which feeds school-age kids throughout the summer. Read more about #foodliteracy from NPR's the Salt here: http://ow.ly/VsRh30j7Jaj #eattherainbow #readingrainbow #themoreyouknow

It's #FarmtoFork Friday: our weekly feature on #simple, #seasonal, #SoCal recipes! Today, we're featuring the Cara Cara: a beautifully pink version of the navel orange. They're tangy and a bit sweeter than a typical navel and have been compared to the taste of berries. A good source of fiber, the antioxidants vitamin A and C, folate, and lycopene, this shorter-season #local powerhouse should not be missed! Bonus for cooking with cara caras? They're seedless! Martha Stewart pa...irs cara caras with earthy blood oranges and a few other ingredients for her fabulously fresh Cara Cara and Blood-Orange Salad with Ricotta Salata: http://ow.ly/ggtg30j7HQZ. Enjoy! If you ever try one of our suggested recipes, we'd really love to hear from you! Was it as easy and delicious as it claimed? Did you modify it with your own spin? Lettuce know about your experience in the comments! #TGIF #californialove #eatlocal #farmtotable #homemade #DIY #recipe #forkyeah