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Eat this: Strawberries at Serendipity Farms
We don’t always consider how certain events can ripple across a community. Take this week’s news about the Live Oak farmers market, for example. Santa Cruz Community Farmers’ Markets, a nonprofit organization based in Santa Cruz, has held a farmers market in the parking lot of the East Cliff Village shopping center on East Cliff Drive for 22 years, but market organizers were frantically searching for a new home this month after lease negotiations with the property owner, Swenson Builders, failed. The market was unable to agree to new terms and a significant rent increase presented by Swenson, and faced a move after its month-to-month lease expired at the end of March.
On Thursday, Swenson Builders granted the market a 30-day extension, so markets will continue to be held at that location on Sundays from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. through April 28, or until the market can find a new home.
What does this mean for farmers? Jamie Collins, owner of Serendipity Farms in Aromas, has sold blueberries and vegetables at the market for 15 years. This year, she was excited to finally be able to sell strawberries for the first time, too, and more than doubled her acreage in anticipation of filling that need. If the market moves – or days are missed – she worries that longtime customers might not follow, and she’ll have to find another way to sell her excess fruit.
I realize that local organic strawberries are not exactly a hard sell; my family devoured six baskets in a week. They are the epitome of spring, and I will gladly eat them by the handful by simply ripping the leaves off and munching on the whole berry, tender stem and all. Buying them directly from the hands that raised them adds an extra layer of sweetness. Collins told me samples are encouraged.
Serendipity Farms strawberries are $6 a basket / three for $15; available at the Live Oak farmers market, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., Sunday. serendipityorganics.com.
Best of the Week Ahead
Below, find a curated list of the best food and drink events in Santa Cruz County for the coming week. At the top, I share my picks of unmissable local happenings.
News of the week
ICYMI – here are the food news stories from Lookout that you might have missed, plus important news from beyond our borders picked by yours truly.
What to eat in Santa Cruz (San Francisco Chronicle)
Ready, set, garçon! Paris waiters race as storied contest returns (The New York Times)
A two-story, tree-filled restaurant and bar is opening in downtown San Jose (Eater SF)