President's Message
for 2009
Buying from your local farmers is about having control over what you do locally. The dollars you spend here remain here, in St. Helena. The region remains agriculturally productive while you support local agriculture. The landscape is preserved and continues to be used for farming rather turned into non-farming use. Perhaps most importantly, the food tastes better and is treated better because it hasn’t traveled vast distances to reach you and your table. It is a sustainable practice and uses fewer natural resources. When you attend the St. Helena Farmers Market, do a complete walk-through before you start shopping. This way you can better appreciate the variety and quality of the products on display. You can also determine if there is something that is selling like hotcakes, so you can buy it before it sells out. You should also feel free to taste—the growers and many of the food vendors gladly offer samples. They are proud of what they have worked hard to produce and genuinely want you to enjoy it. The best way to get to know the sweetness of a strawberry or the spiciness of a salsa is by tasting. At Your Market, you are assured of fresh, great tasting, organic produce which the local growers take pride in producing. Ask yourself why the Chefs of the CIA [as well as other highly regarded Chefs, such as Todd Humphries of Martini House, Vincent Nattress of Meadowood, and Cindy Pawlcyn of Mustards, Cindy’s Backstreet Kitchen, and Go Fish] shop at the St. Helena Farmers Market? The answer is the ingredients are “restaurant” quality. The real cost of food is how much you enjoy it. You can save a few cents per pound for a cucumber which was grown specifically to survive a long journey in a refrigerated truck or boxcar. But if that cucumber has no taste and you end up throwing half of it away, then you aren’t really saving money. Now imagine buying that cucumber (or cherry or fava bean or whatever—so many choices!) just hours after harvest, and you’re holding it in your hand a hop and a skip away from where it was picked. The freshness is obvious: your nose tells you it’s wonderful; your taste buds tell you it’s wonderful. Take a bite—it’s worth every penny. Now you know why to shop locally, buy locally, and support your farmers. Eat better at the St. Helena Farmers Market. |
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