{"id":3165,"date":"2023-08-02T17:09:20","date_gmt":"2023-08-02T21:09:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/santacruzfoodie.com\/?p=3165"},"modified":"2023-11-21T15:54:33","modified_gmt":"2023-11-21T19:54:33","slug":"praise-for-the-aptos-farmers-market","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/santacruzfoodie.com\/?p=3165","title":{"rendered":"Praise for the Aptos Farmers Market"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Author: Tara Fatemi Walker<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lovers of delicious food\u2014especially fresh produce\u2014are so lucky to live in Santa Cruz County. We have a plethora of farmers\u2019 markets; it would be impossible to go to all of them each week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Lately, I have been going more frequently and I decided to share what I bought the last time I went to the Aptos Farmers Market<\/a><\/strong> at Cabrillo College<\/strong>\u2014which is Saturdays from 8 a.m. to noon all year long. I\u2019ll talk about some of the other markets in the future, including the one closest to my home (Live Oak) where I shop most Sundays.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Back to Cabrillo: during this particular visit, I bought more ready-to-eat foods than fresh. The fresh produce I bought included cucumbers from Borba Farms<\/strong> plus spicy sprouts from New Natives<\/strong> (I usually buy pea shoots from NN, so this was trying something new, and they were yummy\u2014my husband enjoyed putting them on his sandwiches for the next few days with hummus\u2014more on that later). Also, I bought delectable yellow peaches from Stackhouse Orchards<\/strong>. Truly some of the best I\u2019ve ever had. One employee was handing out lots of samples: peaches, nectarines, pluots, and more. Can\u2019t wait to return and buy some different things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We saved the row featuring ready-to-eat and bottled\/jarred\/etc. products for last. First, I stopped at Wise Goat Organics<\/strong>. A couple months ago I bought one of its scrumptious sauerkrauts (spicy garlic); this time I was there to get a bottle of Golden Kvass fermented probiotic tonic after seeing it on Instagram. It\u2019s a beautiful bright drink with organic baby gold beets, organic carrots, organic ginger, organic turmeric, and sea salt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Next, I stopped at Hakouya<\/strong> which sells fantastic probiotic miso dressing (I use it on salads, steamed or raw veggies and more), handmade miso (several varieties), sauces, and more. I bought a couple ready-to-drink Amazake, which is a fermented rice drink: miso vanilla (my daughter\u2019s favorite) and Horchata. Some of Hakouya\u2019s products are sold at grocery stores, but you can only find the Amazake at farmers\u2019 markets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After that, I visited the booth for Bay Living Culinary<\/strong>, a recent addition to the market. Chef Jody Lombardo\u2019s experience includes operating Santa Cruz-based Fresh Prep Kitchens for 18 years. She\u2019s now based in Monterey County, so I was very excited to hear she is now at the Aptos market every Saturday. Her regular offerings at the market are ready-to-bake chicken pot pies (which I haven\u2019t tried yet) and Boston style clam chowder. The chowder is why I was there\u2014I\u2019ve had it a few times in the past and it\u2019s been absolutely amazing\u2014and that night as part of our family\u2019s dinner, it lived up to my memories. The last time I\u2019d eaten it was at last October\u2019s Grazing on the Green, where Jody had her pop-up booth \u201cThe Chowder Box\u201d (see photo above). On the Saturday I visited the market, Jody was handing out gazpacho samples, and the soup tasted incredibly fresh, chock full of many veggies and herbs. We took a container home and devoured it the following day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last but not least, my husband was looking for hummus and we stumbled on what turned out to be a treasure. Zena Foods & Sprouted Hummus<\/strong>, based in Sacramento, makes exquisite products. They know what they are doing with the samples they hand out; we tried a bunch of different things and ended up buying way more than we planned because they were so good. I don\u2019t regret buying so much; the containers stayed fresh for many days and were great as sandwich fillings and as snacks with cut-up veggies or crackers. We bought three hummus varieties: avocado\/cilantro, classic hummus, and sun-dried tomato & basil. We also got a package of fresh pita bread, and containers of harissa chickpea salad and Prince Gabriel spread Fun fact: \u201cLove\u201d is listed as the first ingredient on the labels, and you can taste this! After \u201clove,\u201d Prince G\u2019s other ingredients are caramelized onions, sun-dried tomato, basil, sweet bell pepper, green olives, and olive oil.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I hope everyone reading this goes to a farmers\u2019 market very soon; maybe I\u2019ll even run into you there! It\u2019s so important to support farmers and other small businesses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Details:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Location<\/strong> — 6500 Soquel Drive, Cabrillo College (right above a spacious, free parking structure)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

See full vendor list<\/strong> here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Author: Tara Fatemi Walker Lovers of delicious food\u2014especially fresh produce\u2014are so lucky to live in Santa Cruz County. We have a plethora of farmers\u2019 markets; it would be impossible to go to all of them each week. Lately, I have … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[80],"tags":[103,7],"class_list":["post-3165","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-food-food-news","tag-farmers-markets","tag-santa-cruz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/santacruzfoodie.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3165","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/santacruzfoodie.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/santacruzfoodie.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/santacruzfoodie.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/santacruzfoodie.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3165"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/santacruzfoodie.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3165\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3168,"href":"https:\/\/santacruzfoodie.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3165\/revisions\/3168"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/santacruzfoodie.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/santacruzfoodie.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/santacruzfoodie.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}