Hello everyone, and welcome again to the SLO(w) Food Experience!

As always I managed to steal some time from our busy friends at the market! This time I interviewed Antonio Cortez of the Cortez Farms.

Antonio and his family have been farmers in the Santa Maria/San Luis Obispo areas for close to thirty years now, renting land to produce excellent produce and a variety of vegetables. Like all farmers they have had their ups and downs, but Antonio remains cheerful and enjoys his work immensely.

They can easily be spotted at the San Luis Obispo Farmers' Market, where his family sales all sorts of berries, strawberries and an assortment of vegetables under a large white banner that proudly announces “Cortez Farms”

While we chatted, Antonio talked to me a little about how difficult farmers have it by selling to commerces, since the money they get is very little for their hard work, and that is one of the many reasons that he likes Farmers' Markets- they give him and others the chance to sell directly to the costumers for a fair price where we all win.

Although he sells 50% to stores and 50% is taken to the Farmers' Market, there is a definite advantage to selling it at the market -while he might get 4 dollars for selling to a company, he gets 20 for the same amount of vegetables at the Farmers' Market, and we have keep in mind that the price those stores will sell it for is roughly the same (if not more expensive at times) than what you would get  buying directly from him.

Antonio commented that the San Luis Obispo Farmers' Market is like a big family. They all know each other and help each other as they go. When I talked to him and his family about having interviewed a few others at the market, they immediately recognized Craig, Tim and Neal, and I have the gut instinct that as I continue with these interviews and meet more farmers and vendors I am not going to find one person there that does not know all the others!


While talking to him we discussed the issues with Organic Farming and what gets closest to it. What I learned is that while the farmers themselves might do everything organic, the lands they rent might not be completely devoid of previous use of pesticides and such. Antonio mentioned that a land had to be taken care of and given time to cleanse for about ten years before it would be completely rid of products, but, he and the other farmers use as little chemicals as possible, keeping the produce as clean as can be.

As a parting question I asked Antonio what would he definitely recommend customers to buy at his booth in the Farmers' Market. And his answer was: the carrots. He swears that they are the most tasty carrots you will ever find, sweet and crunchy as carrots should be- and carrots are great to cook! So I will conclude today's article with a recipe!

Besides simply boiling them or steaming them, try grilling them, and if you feel you want something sweet, why not glaze them in honey?

The steps are really easy (when I cooked these for x-mas dinner they went in seconds):

You will need:

6 carrots
Two table spoons of butter
Two table spoons of sugar
One table spoon of honey

I cooked the carrots sliced in half, but you can make smaller slices if you want.

1- Boil them for 8 to 10 minutes in salted water (depending on  how firm you want them.)
2- Drain the carrots
3- Throw them in a sauce pan with all the other ingredients and let cook (uncovered) in medium heat for 3 to 5 minutes, stirring occasionally to make sure they get glazed.