Last weekend, we co-hosted a seasonal cooking class to benefit our school foundation. Working with Jonathan Miller, of Eat Right at Home, who created a menu of recipes suitable for the home cook, we created an event highlighting the best of our local farms. Mariquita Farms provided the vegetables; Happy Child CSA provided navel oranges and apple tartlettes; and Marin Sun Farms provided chicken and lamb. All of our participating farms were great to work with, and if you are considering joining a CSA program, or are interested in learning more about what they have to offer, I highly recommend you visit their websites:

Mariquita Farms – located in Hollister and Watsonville, a primarily vegetable CSA which runs March – November: www.mariquita.com

Frog Hollow Farms and Happy Child CSA – located in Brentwood, in the Sacramento River Valley, is a year-round fruit CSA: www.froghollow.com

Marin Sun Farms – located in Marin Country, is a year-round meat CSA, offering beef, veal, lamb/mutton, pork, poultry and goat: www.marinsunfarms.com

And, if you are looking for a chef to help you understand the best way to bring local, seasonal and organic foods into your diet, look no further than Jonathan Miller. A gifted cook, Jonathan demystifies much of the process of moving towards a seasonal kitchen through creative recipes, easy explanations of new ingredients and tons of patience! He is available to cook for your next event, or can arrange to come in and provide personalized family service cooking by the week: www.eatrightathome.com

And here are a couple photos of the food that we enjoyed last weekend:

Holy crud, Batman! I formatted the memory card with all the photos of last weekend’s dinner. The photos are all gone, including super cute ones of my daughter helping in the kitchen. Argh. So very sad. boo hoo, tears. You are going to have to believe me when I say the dinner was outstanding and the food superior.

Thank you to all our sponsors who participated and made this a great event!

Disclaimer: Yes, I was provided food for my event. I solicited the donations in the name of our school foundation. I did not indicate that I would write about the experience on my blog. I am a happy customer, and a ardent CSA supporter and I am writing about this event and the donations because I feel that others in my community would be interested in knowing more about the farms. I appreciate the donation, and I have and will continue to write about these farms, whether they give me free food or not. 

Images courtesy of Mariquita Farms, Marin Sun Farms and Frog Hollow Farms, because of the above mentioned photo tragedy.