August 28th, 2020
Dear shoppers,
Growing up in Santa Monica, my French family would make a monthly pilgrimage south to the Redondo Beach pier to buy live crab. My mother would take a long time selecting her crab, always insisting on a female crab hoping for roe. The fishmongers would boil our crabs for us on the spot and then we would lay them out on newspaper, along with our picking tools, on a nearby picnic table and dig in. We always brought some good sourdough bread and my mother's homemade mayonnaise for dipping the claws.
We wouldn't leave until my mom had sucked every morsel of crab flesh out of every crevice. When my sister and I put our crab shell discards in a pile, my mother would pick through them and gently scold us for wasting so much, then happily "offer" to finish the job for us. Passersby would sometimes stop and marvel at her "picking" prowess.
The squawking seagulls learned quickly that there was no point in hanging around for leftovers at this table. So it is with great joy that we bring you a new lobster and crab vendor this week.
How did we not know after all these years that a family that fishes lobster and crab off the coast of Long Island lives right in Dobbs Ferry?
They will also be selling frozen lobster tails and crab legs for those more squeamish among you. If you didn't make it to Maine this summer due to Covid-19, here's a recipe for a classic lobster roll along with instructions on cooking lobster if you're a newbie.
With all the beautiful seasonal crudités available at the market it's impossible not to crave delicious hummus to go with them. Some of our vendors have woven one or two hummus varieties into their repertoire (beet baba ganoush from Selek, edamame hummus from Momo Dressing) but we needed a dedicated hummus vendor. Enter Jenny Fernandez, of Aya Hummus.
Fernandez is a health coach so you know her hummus is going to be as righteous as it is delicious. She is bringing a sweet potato hummus topped with a spoonful of kale pesto and a coconut and turmeric hummus in addition to her immune-boosting hummus made with alkalizing greens such as spinach and arugula, and herbs and spices.
Before you enter the market on Saturday, make sure you stop at Christian Healy's table. Christian graduated from HHS in 2019 and is now studying environmental science (remotely) at Northwestern University. He has spent the last few months trying to raise awareness about the lack of clean water in other parts of the world and is trying to raise $10k to build a well for a small community in Tigray, Ethiopia. Please help if you can.
Finally, and this is really gilding the lily of a newsletter already chockfull of good news...but Hastings own Girl Scout Toop 1710 has created a food pamphlet on sustainable eating. According to ninth-grader Bee Herbstman, it includes "fun recipes that use farmers market produce." Rather than waste paper with printouts, Bee asked that we post the link. Pass it on!
See you at the market!