LABOR DAY FREE CHILI ROASTING

Espanola Farmers’ Market will be hosting our annual Labor Day Free Chile Roasting on Monday September 3^rd, 2012. Any fresh chile purchased at the Market on Labor Day can be roasted free. We will also have a table with samples of local varieties of heirloom chile and stories of how the farmer obtained her/his seeds and their favorite methods of preparing and eating chile.

Students will be helping set up displays and serving as guides to visitors wishing to sample the varieties of chile during this Labor Day holiday event.These students have been participating throughout the summer in Cooking Up Traditions, learning with mentors Dexter Trujillo, Norma Navarro and Brenda Coriz how to prepare fresh foods in the horno or how to identify and cook wild foods such as quelites (lamb’s quarters), as well as helping weed and plant in the Wildflower Garden. Cooking Up Traditions has been funded by Northern Rio Grande National Heritage Area (NRGNHA) and Farm to School.

Chile roasting will go on all day during Market hours, 10am until 5pm on Monday.

Starting at 1pm, the Market will host the first annual CHILE FEST - a Traditional New Mexico Green Chile Cook-off, in conjunction with íEl Tiempo! Nuevo México. Judges will award 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place for the best traditional green chile in New Mexico!  Contestants must bring their chile to the Market by 1pm. Judging will take place at 1:30.  Entries must consist of a crock-pot of green chile (with or without meat) picked and roasted from this year's crop.  Only traditional chile is allowed, no Big Jim, Española Improved or any other corporate developed or commercially sold hybrid can be entered.  GMO Chile is strictly forbidden!For official rules and to register to enter CHILE FEST 2012, please go to:  www.eltiemponm.org Or go to: https://www.facebook.com/events/306816042750066/

 íEl Tiempo! will also have an information table about the current threat of Genetically Modified Chile.  Visitors can enter to win an íEl Tiempo! beautiful Traditional Chile bumper-sticker or sign a petition to keep New Mexico's chile GMO free! The drawing of winners’ names will be at 5pm on September 3rd. 

Labor Day September 3^rd is also a regular Monday Market, with a wide variety of fruits and vegetables for sale, as well as horno bread, USDA-certified grass-fed lamb, jams, pastelitos, chicos, dried blue corn, local soaps, and other tasty delights. Children can select a free book from our Kids’ Book Exchange. Espanola Farmer’s Market is open twice weekly, including Friday from 2-7pm.

Information: (505) 685-4842

Interesting Facts to Consider

The number of farmers' markets in New Mexico has grown from 39 to 61 since 2005. Gross sales were $6 million in 2011, up from $3 million in 2007. Federal funding of $130,000 in FMPP (USDA Farmers Market Promotion Program) has helped over the past six years. From the newsletter of the Sothwest Marketing Network.

Also of note: From now through April 2013 there are four training sessions of the Southwest Grassfed Livestock Alliance throughout New Mexico. For more information: grassfedlivestock.org

November 14-16, 2012. Quivira Coalition's 11th annual conference. "How to feed nine billion people from the ground up." Albuquerque, NM. For more information: quiviracoalition.org

Support your local chile grower

As we carry locally-grown chiles home from the Española Farmers Market this season, treasure them, freeze them, plan meals around them. Why? Because our vendors deserve appreciation for the hard work that goes into setting up a booth at the market during the height of the season. Also, the New Mexico Chile Association is concerned about the declining availability of fresh, pure state grown product. Our chiles are so good that others want to imitate them. Here's the background. And make sure you get your family's supply for the winter.

Watch for announcements of chile roasting at the Española Farmers Market. Photo: Chile roasting in years past have brought crowds to the market.

Photo: 

Great Summer Projects Funded by NRGNHA

Espanola Farmers’ Market is a seasonal weekly market open every Monday from10am-5 pm mid-June through October. We also host a Friday afternoon market from 2-7pm during the height of the harvest. Farmers come from Santa Cruz, Chimayo, Peñasco, Nambe, Abiquiu, Velarde, Chile, Tierra Azul, Chamita, Cuyamungue, Lyden, La Puebla, Taos, Kewa, Hernandez and other communities to sell their fresh produce including a wide variety of heirloom and traditional vegetables, fruits and herbs. Espanola Farmers Market has received two grants from Northern Rio Grande National Heritage Area (NRGNHA). 

The first grant in 2010 was for the construction of an horno, a traditional clay oven, within the Market’s Wildflower Garden area, a community flower garden with eleven oval flowerbeds. Dexter Trujillo from Abiquiu worked with five local students to construct the horno throughout several consecutive Monday Markets. The students made over 300 triangular shaped adobes from the clay rich soil found at theMarket site, then worked with Dexter to construct the horno and apply a finish coat of mud plaster. The horno construction attracted a variety of visitors and volunteers during each work day, watching, helping mix mud or lay adobes, or sharing stories about how their grandmother or another relative used to bake food with this clay oven.

This year the Market received another grant for a Cooking Up Traditions project. This series of cooking demonstrations is funded for the 2012 season through NRGNHAand Farm to School with in-kind matching provided by Espanola Farmers’ Market. Each week during ten Market Mondays students will cook a variety of foods in the horno and also learn about preparing dishes with wild plants or other vegetables under the tutelage of Dexter Trujillo, Brenda Coriz, Norma Navarro or other cooks. We hope to continue developing the use of the horno and to honor and nurture a variety of land-based traditional practices with these cooking demonstrations. There are a variety of wild food plants already growing in the Garden including quelites, purslane, wild licorice as well as an abundance of wild dye plants. 

Traditional gardens have often included both wild and cultivated foods as well as outdoor methods for cooking or preparation. We plan to cook bread, chicos, pies, squash and other foods, utilizing the nearby NNMC Commercial Kitchen for food preparation & the horno for baking. Students will learn about how to use a traditional oven and how to identify and prepare traditional food. Customers will also benefit from seeing the horno used and sampling foods. On the Chile Roasting Day, various farmers will prepare displays from their farms and identify the variety of heirloom chile they grow. Visitors can have any chile purchased at the Market that day roasted free. One of the cooks will also be roasting chile in the hornoand offering tasting samples. We will have musicians performing throughout midday to add to the celebration. The project will culminate in a potluck feast on the last Marketday in October.

Española Farmers Market schedule for August!

August 3:  Friday Afternoon  Market: 2-7pm

August 6: Regular Market Monday + students & others explore Wild Plants in the fields & in the farmers’ stalls + cooking quelites

August 10:  Friday Afternoon Market: 2-7pm

August 13: Regular Market Monday

August 17:  Friday Afternoon Market: 2-7pm

August 20: The Market Is Corny. Celebrate the arrival of fresh corn. +  students & others do a Roasting Chicos Demonstration in the horno. Shop for freshly-made chicos, posole, fresh corn.

August 24:  Friday Afternoon Market: 2-7pm

August 27: Regular Market Monday.

August 31:  Friday Afternoon Market, 2-7pm