Celebrating Cooperatives and King Cake! | February 14, 2022

Fresh & Local:

Celebrating Cooperatives and King Cake!

An agricultural cooperative is a type of business that is owned and operated by its members who all benefit from its profits. Farmers may form a co-op, for example, by pooling resources like land and machinery to build a more robust business. Cooperatives have more control over prices, and they have collective buying power which leverages lower prices for bulk purchases. Historically, cooperatives have enabled members deprived from economic opportunity due to structural racism a way to build community strength outside of the financial systems to which they’ve been denied access. At Crescent City Farmers Markets, the Indian Springs Farmers Association is a joint venture of 30+ small farms from Mississippi that collaborate in growing and distributing their produce. Check out this video to learn more about farmer Ben Burkett and the history of the ISFA cooperative. CCFM is also a venue for the Louisiana-based Pte. Coupee Minority Growers Co-Operative, and is currently in the process of onboarding a new rice producing regional cooperative of black farmers, Jubilee Justice based in Alexandria. Check out any weekly CCFM market to pick up the freshest local produce from these vendors and support their cooperative endeavors.

Picks of the Week:

New Market Umbrella Board Members

We are pleased to welcome three new Board of Directors members:

Sara Lewis is an attorney practicing in the areas of oil and gas, environmental, and commercial litigation, and is a Partner with Wall, Bullington & Cook, LLC. Sara is a Crescent City Farmers’ Market shopper and supporter and is eager to bring her environmental and policy experience to assist Market Umbrella in its important work educating and partnering with local organizations to serve the public health needs of our community and providing resources to our local farmers. Sara also serves on the Board of Energy Wise Alliance, the Jewish Federation, and the National Council of Jewish Women.

Caroline Gray has worked in food and beverage marketing for over 10 years and is currently Vice President of Marketing at Louisiana Fish Fry Products. A native of Lafayette, LA, and a resident of Bayou St. John, she shops at the Thursday Mid City market. She holds a Bachelor of Science degree from Tulane University and an MBA from Kellogg School of Management.

Jacob Young is a partner at the law firm of Chehardy Sherman Williams. Jacob is a trial attorney whose work and experience stretches across a broad range of clients and disputes, including commercial litigation, insurance, zoning, and real estate. He is a graduate of Tulane University Law School and Louisiana State University. Jacob serves on the board of governors of the Louisiana Association of Justice (formerly Louisiana Trial Lawyers’ Association). Jacob is a Louisiana native, growing up in Livingston Parish before moving to New Orleans in 2005. Outside of work, Jacob enjoys hiking trips, biking the city, bookstores, and coffee. He is drawn to Market Umbrella’s commitment to increasing the community’s access to healthy food and economic opportunities.

Free COVID Testing Now Available at the Tuesday Uptown Market

Beginning on Tuesday February 15th, CORE will offer free COVID testing weekly right next to the Tuesday CCFM at 200 Broadway St. Tests are available to people of all ages, with no insurance or appointment required. To protect the safety of vendors, staff, and shoppers, please refrain from entering the market space if you have had a known exposure to COVID or have symptoms.

BHM Book List: food history/biography

There are so many wonderful books that provide a deep dive into the experiences of black chefs, the history of black culinary traditions in the United States, and how food traditions and culture interconnect; here is a list of a few you might enjoy:

• High on the Hog: A Culinary Journey from Africa to America by Jessica B. Harris - Winner of the IACP Award for Culinary History, “Acclaimed cookbook author Jessica B. Harris weaves an utterly engaging history of African American cuisine, taking the reader on a harrowing journey from Africa across the Atlantic to America, and tracking the trials that the people and the food have undergone along the way.”
• Notes from a Young Black Chef: A Memoir by Kwame Onwuachi - “By the time he was twenty-seven years old, Kwame Onwuachi had opened—and closed—one of the most talked about restaurants in America.”
• Southern Food and Civil Rights by Frederick Douglass Opie - “From home cooks and professional chefs to local eateries and bakeries, food has helped activists continue marching for change for generations.”
• Yes, Chef by Marcus Samuelsson and Veronica Chambers - “One of the great culinary stories of our time.” —Dwight Garner, The New York Times
• Vibration Cooking: Or, the Travel Notes of a Geechee Girl by Vertamae Smart-Grosvenor and Psyche Williams-Forson - This book was “first published in 1970, not long after the term “soul food” gained common use. While critics were quick to categorize her as a proponent of soul food, Smart-Grosvenor wanted to keep the discussion of her cookbook/memoir focused on its message of food as a source of pride and validation of black womanhood and black “consciousness raising.”
• The Cooking Gene: A Journey Through African American Culinary History in the Old South by Michael W. Twitty - A 2018 James Beard Foundation Book of the Year, “a renowned culinary historian offers a fresh perspective on our most divisive cultural issue, race, in this illuminating memoir of Southern cuisine and food culture that traces his ancestry — both black and white — through food, from Africa to America and slavery to freedom.”

Vendor of the Week:

Know Dat Grow Dat

At the Tuesday and Thursday Markets, you will find vendors Mike Beauchamp and Mr. Nelson Richardson of Know Dat Grow Dat selling homemade crab cakes and microgreens while jamming to traditional jazz on WWOZ. After working as a pharmacist for 44 years, Mike shifted his focus to growing microgreens as a way to promote the health benefits of plants and empower people to play a more active role in their health and diet. Mike and Nelson, both from Louisiana, met while gardening at Hollygrove Market and Farm and now farm in lots next to their homes in Hollygrove. In his freetime, Mike enjoys practicing his alto and baritone sax for Delgado’s Big Band. Mike was also recently elected as one of three growers who will serve on the newly formed Farm Service Agency County Committees for Urban Agriculture, which is a huge policy win for urban growers in Orleans Parish.

Recipes of the Week:

Chef Keirsten’s Strawberry Granita

Chef Keirsten Garnett of The Creative Plate has been a supporter of the Crescent City Farmers Market since she was in culinary school at NOCCA. Chef Garnett started cooking at the age of eight when she made a birthday cake for a relative and saw the joy it brought to him. While working in the food industry, she noticed the lack of support for local farmers and produce, and decided to shift her focus to highlighting and celebrating the seasonal ingredients that our local producers have to offer. Now Chef Garnett offers an array of food and meal prep services using produce from producers at CCFM as well as special diet meal plans created to fit the needs of each client. You can learn more about Chef Garnett and her culinary offerings by checking out her website. Keep an eye out for Chef Garnett at our markets – you might even see her as a vendor in the Spring!

Chef Keirsten’s Strawberry Granita

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

King Cake of the Week:

The Big Book of King Cake signing at Tuesday Market

With the countdown to carnival season underway, what better way to prepare yourself for the festivities ahead than with a big ol’ slice of king cake? Well, CCFM has you covered! On Tuesday, February 15th the Uptown Market will host Octavia Books and author Matt Haines signing copies of the Big Book of King Cakes. Several of the king cakes featured in the book will also be on offer by our very own vendors. You will find Passion Flour’s blackberry nutmeg mascarpone king cake and Coffee Science’s Venetian creme king cake. You won’t want to miss out on this event!