Want to lower the carbon footprint of the family’s Thanksgiving dinner? Avoid the long lines at the supermarket by going to the Davis Pre-Thanksgiving Market today.
The market, located in Davis Central Park on Fourth and C Streets, will extend its shopping hours from noon until 6 p.m. for all last-minute holiday shoppers. Special items will be sold that cater to the holiday’s ingredient needs.
“It’s not difficult at all to make a Thanksgiving dinner from locally grown ingredients, especially if you come to the Davis Farmers Market. There is such a variety of locally grown ingredients, it really is a perfect opportunity for the holidays,“ said farmers market staff member Nicole Salengo.
Towani Organic Farms, for example, will be selling all-organic vegetables fit for a holiday feast.
“We will be selling organic squash, which is really good for squash soup, potatoes, pomegranates, pretty much any vegetable you could need for Thanksgiving. Plus, it’s all organic, so you are being environmentally friendly during the holidays,” said Guy Baldwin of Towani Organic Farms.
If the cooks in the family want to try a new recipe for Thanksgiving, the Davis Farmers Market provided an array of recipes for holiday dishes that have an international twist.
Cooks can try making dishes such as Kathmandu Kitchen’s spinach saab, Raja’s Tandoor’s persimmon-pomegranate-cranberry chutney or Thai Recipe’s Thai custard in a pumpkin shell. Spice up old family recipes with The Mustard Seed’s Garlic Mashed Yukon Gold Potatoes or the Hotdogger’s Chicken Apple Sausage Thanksgiving Stuffing.
All of these dishes were prepared and presented at the farmers market annual Thanksgiving Feast Display, which took place Saturday, Nov. 22. Local restaurants such as Ciocolat and Monticello Bistro shared their recipes in order to help inspire shoppers to cook their own feast made from local ingredients.
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For last-minute shoppers who just need a few items, like bread, stop by the Upper Crust Baking Company stall.
“We will be selling our usual array of breads: challah, peasant bread, wheat bread and so forth. We sell exclusively at the Davis Farmers Market,“ said Trudy Kalisky, co-owner of the company
Besides the turkey, one of the best dishes served during Thanksgiving is dessert. Mel Garibaldi Farms will sell all of the produce necessary to make a holiday pie.
“I’m a farmer, not a cook,” Mel Garibaldi, the owner. “So I don’t know much about holiday cooking. But we will be selling all of the fixings you need for a pie the day before Thanksgiving. We’ve got apples for apple pie, lemons for lemon pie and persimmons for a persimmon pie.“
If cooking pies is not a family strength, let the Upper Crust Baking Company step in.
“We’ll have a very large selection of pies: apple pies, pecan pies, sweet potato pie, pumpkin pie and pecan with cranberries pie,” Kalisky said.
Many of the vendors that will be selling items on the day before Thanksgiving have been a part of the Davis Farmers Market for years. Shopping locally will keep students and Davis citizens alike connected with the Davis community, the vendors say.
“My husband and I have been involved in this market for 20 years and we don’t go to the grocery store anymore. This market is a lot of fun and [it has], perhaps, the best food in the area,” Kalisky said.
MEGAN ELLIS can be reached at features@theaggie.org.
