Ocean Beach Farmers Market, San Diego

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I love how a Farmers Market ambiance speaks about its city. Ocean Beach is a funky neighborhood with a free-spirited vibe and the Farmers Market was ubber-crunchy. There were lots of awesome greens and sprouts, raw food, , tons of vegan options, fresh artichokes, kumquats, cherimoyas, unique homemade arts, old hippies dancing to some good bluegrass live music. A real cornucopia of sights, sounds and smells.

We love to support local farmers as much as possible, and we love to have the freshest greens possible for our (almost) daily green juice.

We sat on the beach wall while we enjoyed our dinner. San Diego, you're awesome!

The Ocean Beach Farmer’s Market occurs every Wednesday from 4-8 pm, and is located on the 4900 Block of Newport Avenue, between Cable and Bacon Streets in Ocean Beach.

Palo Alto Farmers Market

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It was our first time buying freshly picked local and organic persimmons and pomegranates. There were funky beets and radishes, and the most amazing variety of greens. In november.
Vegan, raw, gluten free and dairy free options were everywhere (actually, my friend Liza told me that when you are invited to eat at someone's place in California, it is tradition to list at least 3 intolerances/food restrictions!). Mathilde watched the woman operate the tortilla press for 15 min, hypnotized. We even danced to some street music. Oh that market was one of the best we have seen so far!

Market day joy

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It was seeing familiar faces come back for energy balls and the amazement of people at finding out that something so healthy could be so delicious. It was the fishing in the river in shifts. It was catching up with old friends. It was the bartering with other sellers that left everybody happy. It was the clapping at the end of the market to celebrate another great day of hard work. It was the swim in the ice-cold lake on the way back home and the dance party around the bonfire late in the night with roasted fruits on sticks. It was seeing the moon disappearing behind the mountains. It was falling asleep with Mara in my arms with her hair smelling of wood smoke.

A table at the Farmers' market!

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Our friend Amanda and the children have had a table at the Fireweed Farmers' market for a few year. This year, they sell raw ice cream (made simply with bananas and other fruits in the Champion). When I asked Amanda if we could sell some of our favorite raw energy balls, she said yes right away. This week, Amanda was also giving a workshop on rhubarb. If you have read my bio page, you know how much I love rhubarb! You should have seen how proud Mathilde was to join in the preparation of rhubarb chutney, rhubarb iced tea, rhubarb ketchup, rhubarb lentil curry, rhubarb jam, fig and rhubarb compote and my favorite, spicy rhubarb pickles!

The market is open from 3 pm to 8 pm, so we arrived at 2 pm to set up our tables. It was windy and cold and our friends who were selling ice cream were quite bummed, because of course, ice cream don't sell really well when it's freezing outside. By 6 pm, all our energy balls were sold! The girls were thrilled with the experience (and loved that they could use the money they made to buy what they wanted from the other tables!). Finally, the sun showed its face and we had to strip down to t-shirts, and the ice cream started selling like crazy. The girls helped their friends to make it, and Mara and I had to run to the grocery store to get more fruits. 

The rhubarb workshop was a big hit too. People were excited to see how creative they could get with rhubarb (it is still rhubarb season up here and there is tons on it!!).

The market is such a social venue, it was fun to catch up with all the people I hadn't seen in a long time, and it was such a great experience for the girls! They want to do it every week while we are here!