Happy New Year! Closed Sat., Jan. 1, Reopening Jan. 8

Happy New Year from the market! The market will be closed this Saturday and reopens on Jan. 8 and each Saturday thereafter.

The market is open rain or shine from 9 am -12 pm on Saturdays this winter, but please do check for weather updates if we are having wintry weather. Some vendors may not be able to get to market on icy or snowy mornings.

All winter the market features local, seasonal produce, local meats free of antibiotics and hormones, eggs from local, happy chickens and more. See you at the market on January 8!

Hoppin' John and Greens: For Wealth, Luck and Good Health!

Happy New Year! Here in the South, Hoppin’ John is a traditional New Year’s dish, and they say it brings wealth and luck for the new year. The peas are said to represent pennies or coins, and the collards, the color of money, represent cash. With the nutritional punch this dish delivers, why not take a chance on wealth and good luck for the new year?

Many thanks to The Produce Lady for this recipe and the folklore. Lots of leafy greens have great nutritional value, including spinach, kale, and mustard greens, but collards are a favorite with the black-eyed peas. This recipe for Hoppin’ John serves 8 to 10 people – perfect for your New Year’s Day gathering. Enjoy!

• 1 cup dried black-eyed peas
• 5 cups water
• 1 dried hot pepper (optional)
• 1 smoked ham hock
• 1 medium onion, chopped (about ¾ cup)
• 1 cup long-grain white rice

Wash the peas, then put them in a saucepan. Add the water and discard any peas that float. Gently boil the peas with the pepper, ham hock and onion, uncovered, until tender but not mushy — about 1 ½ hours. Add the rice to the pot, cover and simmer over low heat for about 20 minutes, keeping the lid closed the entire time. Remove from the heat and allow to steam, still covered, for another 10 minutes. Remove the cover, fluff with a fork and serve immediately with cooked greens. Serves 8 to 10.

Seasonal Frittata

A few weeks ago, I baked a few pans of a local, seasonal frittata to share with market customers in celebration of the last day of our regular season. I intended to post the recipe right away, but since I had "eyeballed" the ingredients, I needed to re-create the recipe, this time jotting down the proportions.

I baked a couple more pans this week to share with friends Kevin Gordon and Janice Crawford who generously filled in as market manager while I attended the CFSA conference.

This dish is highly adaptable based on seasonality. When I made it in November before the first frost, tomatoes and basil were still at the market. Since we're well into December now, I added hearty collards and green onions. It would be delicious with basil and chopped asparagus in the spring.

This is a great low-maintenance dish for the holidays. Double the recipe to feed all your houseguests and prepare and refrigerate the night before to just pop in the oven in the morning.

Seasonal Frittata (serves 8)

• ½ to 1 pound ground breakfast sausage (depending on how meaty you want the dish)
• ½ cup chopped onion
• 1 clove minced garlic
• 1 large sweet potato, sliced (can use equivalent amount of another potato type or rutabaga)
• ~2 cups of local seasonal produce, chopped (collards, chard, green onion, tomato, carrot, asparagus)
• 6 ounces local cheese
• 8 eggs
• 1 ½ cup milk
• ½ cup heavy cream
• 1 tsp salt
• pepper

Preparation

Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter a 13×9 pan or line with parchment paper.

In skillet, brown sausage, onion and garlic. Set aside. Slice potatoes and chop other vegetables. Place a layer of sliced potatoes in bottom of pan. Evenly apply the sausage mixture on top of potatoes, then sprinkle half of the cheese over top. Add vegetables and apply another layer of sliced potatoes (if any remain).

Whisk together eggs, milk and cream. Pour evenly over dish. Sprinkle with salt & pepper. Top with remaining cheese and bake for about 30 minutes or until egg mixture is set. Serve immediately or refrigerate for up to two days.

Ring in the New Year with Local Food and Tradition!

Enjoy some hoppin' john and collards on Sat., Jan. 1 at Slow Food Triangle's third annual Traditional Southern New Year’s Day: an event to celebrate regional culinary traditions, local farmers, and artisan food producers! The event is 4-7 pm at Durham's Fullsteam Brewery, and the meal will be served at 5 pm.

What's on the menu? Hoppin' john and collard greens of course, along with cornbread, fresh, hearth-baked loaves, sweet potato pie, and more (vegetarian options will be available).

Admission is $15 for Slow Food members, $18 for non-members, and free for children 10 and younger. Wine Authorities and 3 Cups will offer wine to purchase by the glass; Counter Culture Coffee will provide coffee; and the Fullsteam bar will be open for business. All wine sales will benefit the healthy snack program at Club Boulevard Elementary School in Durham.

To keep waste down, you're invited to bring your own plates. Volunteers are needed, so if you'd like to help out, email Mark at Slow Food Triangle. Tickets are for sale online now.

Local Food Makes A Thoughtful Gift!

Inspired at the CFSA Sustainable Agricultural Conference

Written by Juliann Zoetmulder, President WWFM Inc.

It was the 25th annual Sustainable Agriculture Conference (Dec 3-5), but it was the WWFM’s first time in attendance. We were delighted and humbled to be asked to speak during a workshop called “Getting the Basics Right: The Nuts and Bolts of a Successful Market.” Kim Hunter, WWFM Market Manager, and I told people how we were able to start a successful farmers’ market. The amazing part about our story is that it was our community that started this together, and our community is what continues to make it successful. We are professional and we take our business seriously, but the volunteers, vendors, and customers that come week after week deserve the most credit.

We decided to go to this conference because of the WWFM, however, now that I’ve been, I would go again just for the food. The conference was held at the Marriott in Winston Salem and someone at some point from CFSA made a deal with the hotel that we had to drink our own sustainable Kool-Aid. Yes, friends all the meals were sourced from sustainable farms across the state. Each dish had a table tent describing the dish and which farms supplied it. The meal Saturday night culminated in a carving station featuring Rosemary Crusted Steamships from Apple Brandy Beef, Big Oak Farm, and Proffitt Family Farm.

After the dinner, the keynote speaker topped dessert. His name is Michael Shuman. Some may know him from his books, The Smallmart Revolutions: How Local Businesses are Beating the Global Competition and Going Local: Creating Self-Reliant Communities in a Global Age. He addressed the idea that our communities benefit tremendously from buying local and not just by feeling good. He gives compelling macroeconomic reasons for buying local.

There is something for everyone at this conference from the beginning farmer to the gardening, cooking, and eating activist. I attended market structures and buildings, as well as one on canning and backyard fruit trees. I stood outside in freezing temperatures watching Bountiful Backyards plant a fig tree at the Urban Ministries site. I have to say that I’m not so intimidated to plant a tree in clay soil anymore, but I may call them when I'm ready to help out just in case.

If you want to learn and be inspired by what others are doing in local food realm, put the conference on your calendar for next year.

Organic Roots: Singing Turtle Farm

Vendor profile written by Meghan Prichard, UNC-Chapel Hill
Sharon Funderburk of Singing Turtle Farm was born into a farming legacy—and a legacy of organic farming. As she tells it, her ancestors, who immigrated from Germany, arrived in Charleston, S.C., in 1767. “We’ve been farmers ever since,” Sharon said.
Sharon grew up on a dairy farm in Union County. She pursued a degree in horticulture at Duke University and then received her master’s in horticulture at N.C. State. She worked with farmers as a sustainable agriculture consultant before there was a large market for organic products.
Sharon said her interest in organic food came from growing up on a family farm. “Before World War II, that was the only way to farm,” she said. “We used a lot of organic products without anyone saying that’s what they were.”
Now, as a full-time farmer, Sharon is happy that organic products have grown in popularity. “I think that ecological or biological farming is the most energy efficient,” she said. “And, certainly, local food is the freshest and most nutritious.”
Part of Sharon’s decision to begin farming organically was inspired by a discussion with her dad. He argued that organic farming would be too difficult to do on a large scale. Sharon, however, was determined to make the process work. Since their discussion, Sharon has been able to prove her father wrong. All her products are already produced organically and by next year, Sharon plans to have the farm receive organic certification.
Singing Turtle Farm, located in Benson, offers seasonal foods including mustard, kale, lettuce, tomatoes, eggplant, peppers, watermelon, sweet potatoes, cabbage, broccoli, cut flowers and eggs. Because the farm is larger than most organic farming operations, Sharon said the farm is able to take a more diversified approach in its offerings.

At Market and At Table

Sharon said she’s glad to be part of the Western Wake Farmers’ Market. "I think farmers’ markets offer a very important opportunity for the farmer to connect directly to the consumer so we have a better understanding of what the consumer wants ,and they have a more immediately fresh product.”
In addition to selling at the farmers’ market, Singing Turtle contributes produce to Southern Exposure, a restaurant in Faison, N.C. “It's so wonderful,” Sharon said about the restaurant. “The chef is just amazing.”
Sharon also emphasized the importance of building relationships between consumers and farmers. “I would encourage people to talk to each vendor to enhance their experience at the farmers’ market. Find out what they're growing. If there's something that they can't find, ask if somebody will grow it.”
Singing Turtle Farm is one of WWFM’s year-round vendors and will have Southern pearl’s mustard, Japanese red mustard, red Russian kale, collards and broccoli at market this weekend.