Long Beach Farmers’ Market
Cacti and Lemons
The [Long Beach Farmers’ Market](http://www.harborareafarmersmarkets.org/) is a perfect example of how you can vote with your dollars. It’s not in downtown LA, it’s in the middle of comparatively sleepy Long Beach, centrally located (which in California means a short drive) and teeming with local produce. I talked to farmers from Lancaster (95 miles), Fresno (240 miles) and some other places I can’t recall just now. Some were organic, some weren’t but they all were happy to talk to me about how they farm, even if in halting English. A cursory examination of prices puts most of the produce available on par with or cheaper than area markets, and if you factor in quality, forget about it.
Long Beach Tomatoes
There were several kinds of tomatoes, but the stands weren’t overrun with expensive (and pretentious) heirloom varieties. Mostly red cluster varieties, there were a few yellow and orange cherry-types. Piles of cactus and pasillo peppers (that is to say poblanos, not pasillas) flanked more familiar chard, beans, carrots, turnips, squashes and watercress. The obligatory Hass avocado, too, was abundant, its somber color offset by baskets of fresh cayenne and bird chilies.
Avocados
Too late for them in New York, I took advantage of some unbelievably flawless Italian eggplants (with hardly a seed in them). Enormous, healthy, tight-skinned onions piled high at several stands, competing for attention with heaps of white and red persimmons and crimson pomegranates, stacked up two and three feet high. I also encountered four or five varieties of cilantro, but strangely only one of mint (spearmint, my least favorite), plus a host of local things I didn’t recognize and, unfortunately, didn’t have time to stop and talk about.
Long Beach Cherry Tomatoes
I love learning new things about food, especially about foods I think I am familiar with. Nuts, often, get taken for granted as a barely perishable commodity, stored nearly indefinitely in the freezer. In New York, certainly, I buy them in the grocery store, since nuts make rare appearances at the greenmarket. They have always seemed more like flour or sugar than like peaches or onions. At this market, there were at least two farmers selling only nuts, the boastful Peanut Man (who, to be fair, sold real nuts, too) and the farmer from Lancaster, who was only too happy to help us choose from among his almonds, pecans, walnuts, peanuts and macadamias (California having recently begun giving Hawaii and Brazil a run for their money). He also had black mission and calimyrna figs, dried, but recently dried, and bursting with moist, figgy-raisiny goodness.
So what lesson did I learn? Just like any other seed pod, nuts are better when fresh, too. Snacking on some fresh-from-the-tree almonds, we were amazed when, after about 20 seconds of chewing, our mouths lit up with the Technicolor taste of almond. The almond of almond extract and almond cookies and almond ice cream, a taste delivered to us mostly through unnatural flavorings, turns out to be as real and as vibrant as a kick in the nuts.
Did I mention that I missed peaches? I [went away](http://omnivorousfish.com/node/14) before they came, and got back after they were already gone. The season in California, clearly, is a bit longer for peaches, especially Last Chance peaches, a variety, not an admonition. Last Chance have an excellent smell, tender flesh and clean taste, although they don’t have the peach-orgasm intensity of flavor one expects of the earlier varieties.
**Caramel-Baked Peaches**
Serves 4
Pie is too hard. I don’t have time. I don’t have the trick with dough. Whatever. They’re all excuses. The only excuse I’ll accept is “I ran out of flour.” Then you merely bake your fruit by itself.
I love baked fruit. I love apples and Bartlett pears baked with streusel, or just by themselves. Peaches lend themselves to caramel (and almonds) but it could easily be any combination of apples, pears, peaches, apricots or nectarines, with or without the sugar, keeping in mind that the softer fruits (and the sugar, for that matter) will cook much faster than apples or pears.
½ cup sliced almonds
6 peaches
pinch of salt
1 cup brown sugar
Toast the almonds in a heavy dry skillet over medium-high heat or on a baking sheet in a 350 degree oven, stirring often, until lightly browned and fragrant.
Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Split the peaches in half and remove the stone (you may peel them, but I prefer them unpeeled, I hardly ever peel fruit). Cut each half into 3 to 5 slices, depending on size and preference. Arrange in an enamelware or glass baking dish and sprinkle with salt and brown sugar, coating peaches thoroughly. Arrange almonds on top. Bake for 12-17 minutes, until caramel is mahogany-colored and peaches are very soft, but still intact. Cool slightly and serve.
