The fruits of summer

Michelle Farrar

If you are what you eat, customers of the local farmers markets are

going away fresh, colorful, juicy and summer sweet.

They come in droves to the weekly open-air stands in Newport and Costa

Mesa to buy farm-fresh produce and locally made foods.

Certified farmers markets have been set up throughtout California for

more than 20 years, ever since then-Gov. Jerry Brown signed a

proclamation that allowed nonstandard-size produce to be sold at low

prices to consumers rather than being canned or plowed under.

This measure was supposed to benefit the poor and elderly, said Nancy

Castor, manager of the Costa Mesa market held at the Orange County

Fairgrounds.

Decades later, both the financially challenged and the financially

fulfilled are finding delicate, hydroponically grown arugula, plum-red

Japanese tomatoes and creamy Hass avocados that are harvested nearly

year-round.

Vibrant raspberries, strawberries, honeydew melons and cantaloupe

perfume the salty air at the Newport Beach Farmers Market every Tuesday

in McFadden Plaza.

Finding the market is easy. Go any farther west, and you’ll be

catching waves right next to the pier. Cars eddy around the McFadden

Place parking island, where white tents set temporary sail to avoid the

midday heat. Parking is free and easiest to find before 11 a.m.

At the plaza, shoppers have their watermelon sliced up, then go curl

their toes in the sand and nibble away.

Summer also means stone fruits driven in by Central Valley growers:

buttery yellow- and white-flesh peaches, aromatic apricots and

nectarines; and dark, shiny plums and a newer hybrid mix of plums and

apricots.

Glittering samples on toothpicks are hors d’oeuvres for the outdoors.

For a juicy treat, take those peaches out of the white plastic shopping

bag, stretch out the handles and you’ve got a peach bib.

“Do you have honey bears?” asked one young marketgoer at J.D.’s Bees

stall.

“Yes, but what kind would you like?” replied J.D., more formally known

as Jerry Dahlberg.

“A floral honey?” asked the girl.

“All honey is floral,” he informed her, reaching for a tasting spoon.

After being introduced to the three honeys available in a plastic

bear, she went home with the one that was “just right.”

Jimmie Moreno drives in from Corona each week with sweet white corn,

roly-poly squash and four-for-$1 avocados.

“You don’t even need butter,” exclaimed Pauline Stonehouse, a regular

buyer sampling the corn at Moreno’s stand.

Business at the outdoor stalls is conducted a little differently than

at the brick-and-mortar supermarkets. Farmers markets are all

cash-and-carry to your car. Produce is generally picked the day before,

in contrast to being four days from the fields at supermarkets.

And most of what’s offered is “unsprayed” -- the growers attest to not

using spray pesticides. However, there may be a trace of pesticide in the

fertilizer.

Some farms are certified organic; others, such as Rosendale Farms of

Reedley, northeast of Bakersfield, are undergoing the three-year process

to get certificates.

Costa Mesa Farmers Market each Thursday is twice the size of its

Newport neighbor.

The Costa Mesa market has a gourmand’s selection of leafy greens and

tomato varietals, but you can also find hummus and spanakopita, a melty

spinach Greek entree pie.

Among the vendors is the Bread Gallery, which offers crusty, moist

loaves baked at night and delivered warm the next morning by Dawn

Meixner, the baker’s wife, to the market’s stand.

If you’ve never been on the Wall Street trading floor, you might get

some of that same feeling in the market crowd at the Dry Dock fish stand,

while buying shark and mahi-mahi fished from waters in Santa Barbara and

San Diego.

Both farmers markets are open rain or shine.

“During one rainstorm,” recalled Costa Mesa manager Castor, “they had

to take the tents down. We lined up all the trucks and backed them up to

the sidewalk. We sold out of the back of the trucks.”

The customers “never had to get out of their cars,” she added.

FYI

TO MARKET, TO MARKET

* WHAT: Newport Beach Farmers Market

* WHEN: 8 a.m. to noon Tuesdays in summer, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Tuesdays

the rest of the year

* WHERE: McFadden Plaza parking lot off McFadden Place next to Newport

Pier

* WHAT: Costa Mesa Farmers Market

* WHEN: 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Thursdays year-round, except during the

Orange County Fair and for two weeks in December

* WHERE: 88 Fair Drive, on the fairgrounds