Loco for Locavores

What You’ll Find at The Santa Monica Farmers Market’s Five-Day Birthday Celebration

Here's wishing you a (berry) happy birthday, Santa Monica Farmers Market!
Here’s wishing you a (berry) happy birthday, Santa Monica Farmers Market! Photo: JChatoff via Flickr

Once you recover from four days of eating through the Taste, you’ll have five more days of chef-steered gut-busting as The Santa Monica Farmers Market celebrates its 30th birthday from September 14th to 18th. To honor the occasion, the market is throwing a Good Food Festival and Conference to highlight sustainable ingredients and the toques, farmers, and food producers who champion them. What can you expect?

The whole thing starts at 8:30 A.M. (where else) at the market itself on Airzona on Wednesday, September 14th. Here Amelia Saltsman, who wrote The Santa Monica Farmers Market Cookbook will do a chef demo, with the participation of Suzanne Goin, Roxanna Jullapat, Lindy, Grundy, and three market farmers. That night, a screening of the Eva Longoria-produced film The Harvest at Aero Theater will be followed by a discussion with Slow Food L.A.’s Lisa Lucas Talbot on the labor issues that stretch between the farm and your table.

A Localicious Gala party will kick off on September 16th at Santa Monica’s Annenberg Community Gardens, that Richard Johnson told us all about in his L.A. Diet. Overlooking the water, guests will get to enjoy the results when 30 chefs who frequent the market team up with 30 of the market’s farmers to create honorary dishes. There will be live music, an auction, and the usual food event kinds of things, including (if you’re lucky) that one older guy we see who packs the food samples in plastic ware to take home (we’re amassing photographic evidence). Participating restaurants include Eva, Fig, Animal, Ammo, Il Grano, and Rustic Canyon.

On September 17th and 18th, the Good Food Street Fair will take over SaMo High, with a ten-dollar ticket granting access to food samples, workshops, and family-friendly activities that highlight sustainable food.

The Good Food Festival Street Fair will take place Saturday and Sunday, Sept. 17 & 18 from 10am-7pm at Santa Monica High School. Tickets are $10 and include a one-day pass, admission to workshops, farmer, purveyor, and restaurant food samples, and activities for the entire family. Cooking demos include Sang Yoon, Evan Kleiman, Nancy Silverton, Ilan Hall, Sherry Yard, and Suzanne Goin, while demos will explore growing your own edible garden and backyard chicken-raising, making jams and pickles, and panels that find chefs discussing “good food.”

A whole slew of panels and conversations are slated over the five days, including an agricultural art exhibition at SaMo High, a food policy and health summit featuring Chipotle’s Steve Ells, and a trade show at Santa Monica College. Explore the options and get your tickets online.

What You’ll Find at The Santa Monica Farmers Market’s Five-Day Birthday