Local Chefs, Caterers and School Food Service Staff Invited to Tour the Davis Farmers Market with Regular Market Shoppers, Chefs Stan Moore and Pru Mendez

(Davis, CA) - As part of the growing interest in consumers and students alike wanting to eat locally grown foods, and the growing interest in chefs wanting to provide it on their menus, The Davis Farmers Market Foundation and the Yolo County Agricultural Initiative, along with Jim Mills of Produce Express, Sacramento, David Levin of California Growers Collaborative, Tony Gruska of Monticello Bistro, Winters, and Pru Mendez of Tuco’s Wine Market and Café are co-sponsoring a Chefs’ Walk and Familiarization Tour of  the Davis Farmers’ Market, the first and now the oldest certified farmers’ market in California.

Chefs at the market are a common sight in San Francisco’s Ferry Plaza Farmers Market, where they often greet the farmers by name, and get information about upcoming crops, just as they are at New York City’s famous Green Market in Union Square. So why not in Davis?

This is what Randii MacNear, long-time market manager, would like to see. “There is so much potential here at this market,” she says. “I’m especially excited about the possibility of ways the farmers market produce can appear on the lunch plates of students and in the meals occasionally prepared for campus events at UC Davis through caterers approved to provide meals on campus, in addition to UC Dining Services.”

Participating chefs will be greeted at 10 AM, November 10th by Randii MacNear and Ann M. Evans and Georgeanne Brennan of the Yolo County Agricultural Initiative, an innovative initiative which promotes the foods, wines and farms of Yolo County (see www.atasteofyolo.com.) Beginning with coffee and sweet rolls from the market, the chefs will then explore the market under the expert tutelage of Stan Moore and Pru Mendez, who will talk about how they use the market’s products in their restaurants and why they shop the market themselves. There will be plenty for the chefs to taste and discover as they amble through the farmers’ stalls piled high with winter greens, vegetables, and fruits, as well as nuts, dried fruits, honey, and more.

At then end of the tour, chefs will don their white chef jackets for a group photo. Davis school food service providers are further invited to a lunch and tour of a local farm, Robert Ramming’s Pacific Star Gardens, after the chef walk.