Moving Beyond Cancer in NOLA: CCFM Market Morsels

Events at the Market! | February 26, 2018

Fresh & Local:

Market Match at Robért Fresh Market

Market Match is a long-standing program that Market Umbrella has been operating out of the Crescent City Farmers Market that helps SNAP recipients stretch their food dollars and gain access to more healthy local food options by matching EBT funds with additional money for fruits and veggies. We’re excited to announce that we’ve expanded Market Match to Robért Fresh Market’s St. Claude and Claiborne locations! For every $5 a SNAP shopper spends on fruits and vegetables, they’ll receive a coupon for $5 off fruits and vegetables during their next purchase, up to $10. We’re excited to partner with a great locally-owned business like Robért that offers high quality groceries to our community, and that helps us offer Market Match with the convenience of a store to customers who might not be able to make it to our market. Know anyone who receives SNAP? Tell them about Market Match!

Picks of the Week:
Book Signing with Liz Williams

Liz Williams, a New Orleans native and founder and Executive Director of the Southern Food and Beverage Museum will be at the market tomorrow, Tuesday, February 27th to sign copies of her book New Orleans: A Food Biography, which takes readers through the history of the city, showing how the natural environment and people have shaped the cooking we all love. It was selected as this year’s One Book, One New Orleans Reading Challenge book which encourages all New Orleanians to read the same book at the same time. She’ll also be signing copies of her book Lift Your Spirits, a history of cocktail culture in New Orleans. Stop by from 9 am to 1 pm to meet the author and get your copies.

New Orleans Public Library

Everyone loves a good book sale! Join the folks from the New Orleans Public Library at the Thursday market this week in Mid-City. Bring the kids, shop for all of your dinner necessities, and grab a good book while you’re at it!

Bean Madness

March is here so you know what that means? Beans! The folks from Red Beans Parade are getting ready to kick off Bean Madness: the tournament modeled after college basketball’s March Madness that determines through blind taste tests the best red beans in the city. The single elimination tournament raises money for nonprofits Anna’s Place, which offers after-school and summer camp programs as well as health outreach and a food pantry, and Make Music Nola, a free music-for-social-change program. This year completing your bracket will be easy and exclusively online, where you can compare your bets to those of celebrity judges. Keep an eye out, the website will go live March 1st. First tastings will happen next week at our Thursday, Mid-City Market, March 8th. Get your bean on, y’all!

Vendor of the Week:
James Farm

Shout out to James Farm this week! What’s better to enjoy with a bowl of beans than fresh long grain Prairie Ronde rice. While rice farming only became a serious venture in January of 2017, the James family has been farming for 30 years. After developing a partnership with Rolando Sanchez, Beth James began to offer a non-GMO single variety long grain rice. Interesting fact about our favorite Saturday grain vendor, they were so fed up with quality degradation from using other mills, they built their own on site and calibrated it so that the most bran is left intact while still allowing it to be considered white rice, hence the term “light brown” rice. So you still get much of the nutritional benefit of a brown rice, but with the longer shelf life of white rice. Find Prairie Ronde Rice at Saturday market or at Bonnecaze Farms’ table at Tuesday market.

Tuesday’s Green Plate Special:
ROOTs

This duo will be serving market inspired goods as our GPS for one last Tuesday in February. Their food is local, healthy, all made from scratch, and delicious. Can’t get enough? Don’t worry - you can find them popping up all over town using the same ingredients in your favorite dishes. Learn more about the pop-up restaurant and their food philosophy on their Facebook page.

Recipe of the Week:
Creole Tomato Jam

Maybe there is something in the air, or maybe it is the abundance of juicy maters at the market… Either way, we are feeling inspired by tomatoes right now. With plenty to choose from - hydroponic or field, slicer or cherry, red or green, creole or heirloom - it is hard not to be. Our current obsession is tomato jam. Garden & Gun has an amazing recipe from chef Tory McPhail of Commander’s Palace. If you are not up to the task, you are in luck! Pick up some ready-made from Poche Family Farm at Tuesday or Saturday market.

What’s your favorite dish to make after visiting the Crescent City Farmers Market? Share your recipes with us on Instagram or Facebook or even Twitter and it might be featured in our weekly newsletter!