Gorgeous day up at the Santa Monica Farmers Market (SMFM). We had not been up here in about 2 months due to the fact that we now have built many more great relationships with local San Diego farms, and we’re able to get their beautiful freshly picked offerings delivered to our doorstep. Sometimes we gotta drive out to valley center for Polito’s citrus or Valdivia’s perfect tomatoes, but trust me it’s not a bad ride.
We had been looking forward to this trip though, because we were on a mission, to get the best stone fruit available, no matter how many cherries Jay had to eat for quality assurance.
He did eat a decent amount, but someone had to do it. The stone fruits were the first offerings of the season and I gotta say, they were riper and sweeter than we had expected.
So here’s what we have to offer the kitchen, and in a few days you’ll see what they came up with on the menu:
• Fitz Kelly set aside some yellow peaches, white peaches, yellow nectarines, and apriums
• Simms Cherry Farms from Visalia had some beautiful red shiny tulare cherries.
• Ha’s farms balanced out the stone fruit madness with their organic Fuji apples. Sadly no Asian pears.
• Dates by Davall from Indio also helped with the balance. They had some watermelons and honey dates. The dates are nice.
• Barbagelata Farms from Linden, Ca got us back on track with our mission and we got some sweet tart Brooks cherries.
• Burkhart had low acidity and sweet apriums.
• Scott farms from Dinuba had some of the sweetest snow queen white peaches at the market.
Overall, we got really stoned, and we’re very excited for all of you to try these sweet, juicy, and fresh fruit. I’m sure you’ll be seeing it on the salads, mains, and desserts. Plus we have blackberries and blueberries locally from Stehly organics to throw into the mix. Stop in this weekend and see what we came up with.
Cherries,
Juan
Juan!! I really wish I wasn’t going to Arizona this weekend, so I could stay and try out some of the incredible dishes you guys will be cooking.
Best!!