It’s baby goat season, but we’re not talking goats here! Kids love to learn to cook at the market! They love meeting the farmers and are adventuresome enough to try new foods and be willing to experiment with flavor combinations. So we want to give them more opportunities to learn this year.
We’ve grown up with a full generation or two of folks not cooking. Busy work schedules have many folks relying on restaurants and grocery store-bought finished foods to feed themselves with little regard for healthy or local options. Cooking classes at the market are short and sweet, and so are the recipes because they utilize whole foods that taste good and are really fresh.
I’ve enjoyed doing demonstrations and classes at local markets for more than three years now with other chefs in the area, and that’s why I’ve decided to help our local market managers put together more classes so we can all address the need in our community to feed the next generation with the gift of cooking knowledge. Knowing what’s in season and how to work with it will service them for a lifetime. And hopefully they will enjoy the kinds of experiences many of us had cooking with our grandmothers or gardening and fishing with our parents and grandparents.
To help establish some new cooking classes for kids at the markets in the Triangle area, I’ve decided to donate some large Japanese Maple trees that I have been growing organically as a hobby for the last dozen or so years to markets that either have established kids classes or are in the process of setting them up for this year. A couple of trees for each market doing these sorts of activities will help purchase equipment and food for the classes since most markets try to offer these as a public service for free or a nominal charge.
Each of the trees is between 6-8′ tall without the container and has been container grown for about a ten years. They normally grow about 1′ per year in the ground so you should see some real height within three years of settling them into your own garden. They are the Bloodgood Variety and will reach a height of 25′ over time with a spread of 15′. The original tree the seeds came from was well over 60 years old. They are long-lived trees with a spreading root system and they like well-drained sites that get water over the shallow feeding roots. They are $100 each, which is well below the wholesale value of these trees. Your donation to an approved market (501C non-profit organization) that has contacted me with their information will be considered the “purchase”. You will need to coordinate picking up your tree after your donation is complete.
Durham Farmers Market is participating in this program currently and other emails are out to market managers in the Triangle area regarding this support program. If you have questions about the trees or how to get one, please email me at tarheelfoodie at gmail dot com. If you are a market manager and want to coordinate with me on this program, please send me a email.
