Medfly quarantine affects Santa Monica farmers markets and others

A recent find of a Mediterranean fruit fly in Santa Monica has caused state authorities to declare a quarantine that has started to affect vendors and customers at 10 farmers markets in that city and adjacent areas – just in time for the pre-Thanksgiving rush.

Armando Garcia, whose family grows citrus, avocados and other fruits in De Luz, in northern San Diego County, and who sells at the Santa Monica farmers market, found out about the new regulations on Tuesday at a meeting for farmers organized by county, state and federal authorities.

As he related while setting up his stand early Wednesday morning, he was told that he could continue to bring fruit from his farm to the market, but if it were displayed openly, where fruit flies could attack it – as almost all vendors have done up to this point – he could not bring the fruit back to his farm but would have to donate or destroy it. Fruit that is protected from flies because it is within a closed truck will be exempt from this requirement, as will be fruit that has been exposed only while being handled briefly and actively, so that flies cannot settle.

Vendors will be asked to cover their produce with insect-proof screening, but that fruit cannot be brought back to the farm, said Anthony Jackson, domestic program coordinator for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service.

Growing and eating it all on the family farm

When Greg Nauta of Rocky Canyon Farm kills a cow, he gets two tri-tips. That’s doesn’t put him in a good position to sell to customers looking for tri-tip in quantity, so he needs people willing to cook all the other parts of the animal.

Fortunately, chefs such as Ben Ford of Ford’s Filling Station in Culver City are interested in doing just that.

They, along with farmer Phil McGrath and moderator Evan Kleiman, talked Thursday night on a panel at the Santa Monica Library called “Eating the Whole Farm,” about a revivial of “nose to tail” farming and cooking practices.

Ford said he is buying whole rabbits, deer and pigs for his restaurant, adding that doing so gives him and his staff a new “reverence” for food animals.

McGrath noted that eating seasonably requires people to try new foods, to adapt to what's available, and that people are coming around to that idea.

“I remember back in the day when nobody would buy a beet. People were afraid of beets,” said Kleiman, host of the KCRW show “Good Food” and chef-owner of Angeli Caffe on Melrose.

Market Watch: Mexican limes, Arkansas Black apples and Autumn Lady peaches

 

Just-picked peaches in November?

It seems preposterous, but Tenerelli Farms of Littlerock just started selling their Autumn Ladys, making them probably the latest peaches in the Northern Hemisphere. Surprisingly, it's a good peach, not mealy like many late varieties. Read more about peaches, strawberry guavas (above), limes and more at David Karp's weekly Market Watch column:

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Photo caption: Strawberry guavas. Photo credit: David Karp / For the Times

Eggs as fresh as possible for those who don't want to get (too) dirty

My mom grew up on a farm and had to collect eggs every morning before school. She hated it, and never let us kids forget how hard she'd worked in her own childhood. So the fad for getting chickens in urban backyards has made me smile.

Today, we saw a post on Tasting Table Everywhere, however, that offers the best of both worlds: cute coops and fresh eggs. The Chicken Eglu from a British company called Omlet is a chicken condo that houses two to four birds -- a bigger structure houses up to 10.

We talked with James Tuthill at Omlet in Oxford, England. He and three other students at the Royal College of Art in London came up with the chicken houses as a school project and then decided to turn it  into a business. They've been operating in the U.S., out of Iowa, for a few years, he says.

"It's just taking off in the States," he says, in part because "more people got more interested in where their food is coming from."

The Times found some chicken owners in L.A. recently.

Tuthill has two chickens at home.

"They lay well, they're nice and friendly," he says.

For its customers, the company provides a guide to owning chickens. Tuthill says taking care of them is easy.

"You don't need to talk them," he says. Just feed them, clean their homes and collect the eggs. "The more time you spend with them, the friendlier they become."

Photo courtesy of Omlet

Can we interest you in a glass of 'natural wine'?

"Natural wine" is the trendiest term to be punted about by people seeking something nongeneric. It’s also the vaguest, and that’s a mixed blessing. Read more here:

Photo credit: Carlos Chavez / Los Angeles Times

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The 'Gin'-ger basiltini cocktail served at Girl & the Fig in Sonoma

Join us on Twitter @latimesfood and Facebook @latimesfood

Photo credit: Anne Cusack / Los Angeles Times

Dangerous citrus pest nears California growing center

A tiny insect that threatens California's $1.6-billion citrus industry has been found near one of the state's commercial citrus growing regions.

The Asian citrus psyllid, which has ravaged orchards in Florida as well as overseas, was found in Valley Center in rural San Diego County, the closest the bug has come to a major concentration of citrus groves. Read more here.

Photo: Los Angeles Times

Big year for Bordeaux?

Get ready, wine collectors: Bordeaux looks like it's having a historically great vintage in 2009.

The weather has been warm and dry all summer, and most of the Merlot is already harvested. On the Right Bank, where Merlot is the dominant grape, vintners are comparing '09 to the great years of the last century.

"The '09 vintage has been the perfect vintage," said Christian Moueix, president of the family company that makes some of the most expensive wines in Pomerol, including Petrus. "We had the summer of '89 and the picking of '90. I compare it to '47. We will have that kind of extraordinary character."

There's always some hype with vintage reports, because nobody wants to tell customers that next year's product isn't worthy. But weather records don't lie.

About an inch of rain fell over three days in mid-September; then the skies stayed dry for the next three weeks. A storm was expected last week, encouraging some wineries to pick beforehand. But the clouds stayed away days longer than expected and eventually dropped just a few millimeters in some areas, a sprinkling that the Medoc's famous Cabernet Sauvignon vines probably welcomed.

Moreover, technology has advanced tremendously since great vintages like 1982, meaning quality should be more consistent. The one worry is alcohol level: All that warm weather means some of this year's wines will be pushing 15%. That, and the fear that the world economy may not be ready for the prices Bordeaux negociants might demand when word starts to get out -- which it will very soon.

"The word for the vintage is fruit," Moueix said. "Unbelievable -- you enter the tank rooms and you smell so much more fruit than I have smelled in years."

-- W. Blake Gray

Photo: Christian Moueix. Credit: Los Angeles Times Syndicate

Sampler Platter: Reviving British food, hipsters make PBR more popular, Stefan Richter says something arrogant

Stefan Richter surprises no one with his arrogance, agribusiness throws its weight around and more food news in today's roundup.

-- Sorry, hipsters. Your ironic consumption of Pabst Blue Ribbon made it more popular -- and more expensive -- than other lowbrow beers. NBC Los Angeles
-- "I think America knows that I won Top Chef," says Stefan Richter. LAist
-- Sweets and schadenfreude: Cake Wrecks makes it into the New York Times.
-- California agribusiness pressures Cal Poly San Luis Obispo to nix Michael Pollan lecture. Los Angeles Times
-- Don't wear your sweatpants to Wolfgang Puck's restaurant. Washington Post
-- A recipe for bite-sized bacon caramels. The Kitchn
-- Bears love eating from minivans. Los Angeles Times
-- Hoping to incite “serious contemplation of a robust culinary tradition,” British Food in America, a new online mag “dedicated to the discussion and revival of British foodways,” launches. News items will appear “forthnightly." Cheerio, old chap.

-- Elina Shatkin

Photo: Canned food from explorer Ernest Schackleton's 1907-09 Nimrod expedition in Antarctica, part of Britain's "robust culinary tradition." Credit: Chris Walker / Chicago Tribune.

Meet Your Maker: Farmer John Muller and his 1,200-pound pumpkins

Half Moon Bay is home to Giant Atlantic pumpkin enthusiasts, who grow squashes that can weigh in at more than 1,000 pounds (a world record was recently set by an Ohio farmer with a 1,725-pounder). One of the town's famed growers also is its mayor, Farmer John Muller. He lives for two things, he says, "politics and pumpkins."

At last week's weigh-off, one of his hybrid pumpkins weighed in at 1,200 pounds, setting a record for the county.

Muller also imports rare Italian pumpkin seeds that date back to the 1700s and uses them to grow over 50 colorful, oddly-shaped varieties of squash on his farm just off Highway 1. You can see some of these big boys at the Half Moon Bay Arts & Pumpkin Festival this weekend.

Check out video, photos and the full article at Brand X.

--Krista Simmons

Photo: Farmer John Muller and one of his Giant Atlantic pumpkins, which he's named Miss Pretty Ida. Credit: Aaron Avila

Green chile blues

Who knew there were so many expat New Mexicans living in Southern California? Wednesday’s California Cook column on cooking with green chile drew almost 50 e-mails and that was just before lunch. Many of them were sharing memories of the Land of Enchantment, and many were sharing cooking tips, but I have to say that most of them were asking for recommendations for restaurants where they could find good New Mexican food around here.

And for that question, I’m afraid I had no good answer. In fact, this is something that makes me crazy: Why is it that every Southwest Airlines flight between here and Albuquerque is jammed to the rafters, yet there isn’t a single place in Southern California where you can get decent green chile? I know someone’s going to bring up that place in Fullerton and the only thing I can say is: Don’t bother. I’m not sure how you can do such simple food so badly, but you’d have to be really hungry for a sopapilla to go there. And I’m writing as someone who, on more than one occasion over the last 20 years, has been just that desperate.

So here’s a deal for some hungry Southern California cook: Open a good New Mexican restaurant and you can have my green chile enchilada recipe; you can have my calabacitas recipe; you can have my posole and green chile stew. And you can have my business on a regular basis. Just open the danged thing.

And judging from the amount of mail I got Wednesday, I probably won’t be the only customer you get.

-- Russ Parsons

Photo: Green chile enchiladas. Credit: Anne Cusack / Los Angeles Times