The art of choosing walnuts

Walnuts seem easy to overlook — how special can a nut be? — but every fall I look forward to the new crop of walnuts.

Get them now, before the holidays, when the meat is sweet and slightly creamy and they haven't had a chance to develop any rancidity.

The shells will be fragile enough to crack with your hands.

— Russ Parsons

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Just as persimmons are getting really good, an autumn preserves demo at Surfas

Now that we're squarely in fall, Saving the Season's Kevin West and Bettina Birch of Bee Green Farm return to Surfas on Saturday to conduct a demonstration on autumn preserves. The in-depth demo, starting at 11 a.m., will focus on fruits of the season (persimmons, apples) and comes in time to start thinking about your Thanksgiving table.

West and Birch will be making fresh persimmon butter (no canning required), spiced apple-persimmon chutney with Birch's own Fuyu persimmons and Arkansas Black apples, and something to liven your Thanksgiving dinner: not cranberry relish but cranberry jam with orange peel and candied ginger.

The demo is free, open to the public, and no reservations are necessary. West and Birch promise there will be an all-you-can-eat tasting to follow.

Surfas, 8777 Washington Blvd., Culver City.

-- Betty Hallock

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Photo: Fuyu persimmons. Credit: David Karp / Los Angeles Times

Spiny lobster season starts!

Spiny lobster season in Southern California opened last week, and that means hungry shoppers were lined up at Pearson’s Port this weekend. Located in the harbor at Newport Beach, Pearson’s is a second-generation dream come true for local lovers of seafood. Tommy Pearson is a fisherman who specializes in spot prawns during the summer and spiny lobsters during the winter. He’ll also bring in whatever fish he happens to catch while he’s out on the water tending his traps. His wife, Terese, runs the store, which is really just a shack housing a dozen or so live tanks.

The place can be a little hard to find -- it’s literally in Newport harbor, at the end of a short pier just underneath the Pacific Coast Highway bridge (I rent kayaks right next door). Turn in just before the trailer park and drive down to the water.

Prices this year are the same as last -- $17.99 a pound. And Terese says early fishing has been good, so supplies are plentiful. Spiny lobsters seem to me a bit leaner and more minerally than their Maine cousins (plus they don’t have front claws). My favorite way to fix them is to split them, brush them with herb butter and grill them -- flesh-side down for a couple of minutes, just long enough to firm the meat -- and then turn them over. They’re done when the meat begins to pull away from the shell. Don’t overcook them or they’ll dry out.

If you can’t make it to Newport, you can also find spinys at good local fish markets, including Quality Seafood in Redondo Beach, Los Angeles Fish Co. downtown, Malibu Seafood, Fish King in Glendale and the various Santa Monica Seafood stores. Call first to make sure they’re in stock.

Pearson’s Port, 100 E. Coast Highway, Newport Beach, (949) 675-6771.

-- Russ Parsons

Photo of Terese Pearson by Karen Tapia-Anderson / Los Angeles Times

What's fresh at the market? Winter squash

Let California Cook columnist and L.A. Times Food editor Russ Parsons serve as your guide to the freshest produce of the season. Recipes included, and updated regularly.

What's fresh at the market this month? Winter squash. So what do you do with it once you get it home? How about mushroom and winter squash gratin or squash baked with sage and chili butter?

-- Rene Lynch

Join us on Twitter @latimesfood and Facebook @latimesfood

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Photo credit: Anne Cusack / Los Angeles Times

Farmers, mayor celebrate markets anniversary

When Lorraine Tenerelli tried to get her husband to bring their peaches to sell at Los Angeles County’s first farmers market 30 years ago he didn’t want to be bothered. But he tagged along with her to a church parking lot in Gardena.

“When he saw the mob of customers, he said, 'We’ve got to plant more,' ” Tenerelli said Thursday at the weekly farmers market outside City Hall, where Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and other officials joined with farmers, market organizers and some of the city’s best-known chefs to celebrate the anniversary and the growth of farmers markets to a total of 121 today -- more than any county in the country, the mayor said.

The celebration ranged from serious to fun, including a salsa contest -- the eating kind, not the dancing kind -- plus chef demonstrations and plenty of food vendors, naturally.

Villaraigosa also announced a food policy task force that will “help turn L.A. into the farmers market capital of the world.”

“When you think of it, what is more important than the food we put on our table?” he said.

Every week, 1,000 farmers and food producers sell their wares to about 250,000 shoppers in L.A. County markets, he said, adding later that he shops at the Sunday market in the Larchmont neighborhood.

Market Watch: Penryn Orchard Specialties continues a tradition of 'mountain-grown' fruits

Jeff Rieger's commute each week to the Santa Monica farmers market from his farm in Placer County -- 924 miles round trip -- is probably the longest regularly undertaken by any vendor at a Southern California certified market. He is driven by a passion to grow and market rare and high-quality fruits, all the more remarkable since he got into farming almost by accident.

It was the mandarins that hooked him. For 23 years he had lived near Lake Tahoe, first skiing, then painting houses, then building them on speculation. When Rieger and his girlfriend at the time bought a 4.3-acre property in Penryn, in the Sierra foothills northeast of Sacramento, in November 2002, he intended to fix up the house and flip it for a profit. But the owner had left the crop of satsuma mandarins on the trees, and Rieger started picking them and bringing them to a local store. Soon he split with the girlfriend and fell in love with the farm, which he named Penryn Orchard Specialties. Read more here.

And check out this photo gallery -- gorgeous images of the fruit produced at Penryn.

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Photo caption: Jeff Rieger's girlfriend, Laurence Hauben, at the farm. Photo credit: David Karp.

Put up or ... : Saving the Season, a new blog about preserves

 
A new Los Angeles-based blog, Saving the Season, celebrates the art of home canning (or "putting up") and all things deliciously jammy -- preserved huckleberries, blueberry butter, white peaches in lavender syrup, apricot jam with maple and vanilla, mulberry-plum preserves and more. 

The blog is about "jams and other fruit preserves, pickles and briny things, canned vegetables (above all tomatoes)," according to its author, Kevin West, who is also West Coast editor of W magazine. Though it's just a couple of months old, there already are several recipes for jams and fruit butters, as well as one for cocktail onions -- for Gibsons, of course.     

It's also rife with good reading, punctuated by canners' secrets (such as the judicious use of gin), literary references (Pablo Neruda's "Ode to Tomatoes"), and even personal advice from Alice Waters ("do everything neatly always").

On Saturday, West and Bettina Birch of BeeGreenFarm will give a free canning demonstration at Surfas in Culver City from noon to 1:30 p.m. They will show how to make peach jam and how to can tomatoes, with a tasting to follow. (Surfas is at 8777 Washington Blvd., Culver City; (310) 559-4770.)

-- Betty Hallock

Photo credit: Kevin West

A behind-the-scenes look at your farmers market finder

 

We're Californians. We like our produce fresher than fresh. We want it picked that morning, if at all possible. And we love our farmers markets. It seemed like a no-brainer to launch an interactive map that featured every single farmers market in Southern California.

But that was just the starting point. We wanted this to be a resource where we could share details about when the season's first crop of mulberries, or white peaches, would be coming to market. We also wanted to know which markets are kid friendly, and which offer a more chef-y vibe. What were the best markets for grazing -- whether it be samples or prepared foods. We also wanted it to showcase one of our favorite features -- Russ Parsons' Cooking through the Seasons -- as well as our timely reports from our Market Watch columnist, David Karp. We wanted it to also link to our ever growing collection of recipes from the Times' test kitchen, as well as any food news.

That couldn't be that hard, could it?

Are we farmers market failures?

Here in Southern California we love our farmers markets. But do we love them as much as the folks up north in Davis? Or back east in Ithaca, N.Y.? Or in Sunset Valley, Texas, for god's sake? Apparently not. American Farmland Trust is running a national online poll to determine the best farmers market in America and the only Southern California market in the Top 60 is Santa Barbara's. 

Now, there's no arguing that there are great farmers markets all over the country these days. But Ithaca? Given the weather up there, how long can it be open? Two weeks in August?
No, I think the problem is that maybe we've grown just a little complacent. Certainly the Santa Monica and Hollywood markets ought to be on that list. And for that matter, so should Torrance and Pasadena's Victory Park. And I'll bet you can think of a couple more.

Markets in the competition are divided into three size categories, depending on how many vendors attend them. The smallest markets are 30 vendors or smaller and the leading vote-getters so far are something called Smart Markets at Mason, in northern Virginia, and the Collingswood, N.J., farmers market. The Fresno State farmers market is third.

Mid-size markets have between 30 and 55 vendors. Leaders are the Capitol market in Charleston, West Va., the Historic Lewes, Del., Farmers Market, and the Farmers Market at Minnetrista in Muncie, Ind. 

Leading the big-market competition are the Davis market, just outside of Sacramento, Ithaca and Sunset Valley. Where in the world is Sunset Valley? Or, maybe more to the point, where in the world is Santa Monica? There's still time to right this grievous wrong. Vote early and vote often.

-- Russ Parsons

Photo: Alex Weiser at the Santa Monica farmers market. Credit: David Karp / For The Times

Got strawberries?

No need to hesitate -- if those market strawberries are calling your name, by all means snap 'em up. Here's a preserves recipe that will have you enjoying those little delights well into the fall and beyond. (You could also try this recipe for this stunning strawberry crostata and this mixed berry crostata.)

--Rene Lynch

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Photo: Ken Hively / Los Angeles Times