BY LEAH GREENSTEIN
A typical Sunday at the Hollywood Farmers’ Market this time of year reveals tables teeming with plump heirloom tomatoes—crimson and ruby, lemon yellow and chartreuse, striped and solid. Butternut and acorn squash, figs, pomegranates and apples abound too.
But what happens to the leftover produce at the end of the day?
Before the Farmer’s Kitchen opened last spring, much of it ended up on the compost pile. These days, some of that produce is turned into delicious lunches and brunches at the Farmer’s Kitchen, a café and retail space at the corner of Selma and Morningside Court. Started by Sustainable Economic Enterprises of Los Angeles (SEE-LA), the community development organization that manages the Hollywood Farmers’ Market and six others, including Echo Park, Lemon Grove and Watts, the Farmer’s Kitchen is a weeklong showcase for the bounty of the farmers’ markets. And while many LA restaurants are dedicated to highlighting Weiser potatoes or McGrath greens, the Farmer’s Kitchen actually helps ensure those markets’ longevity. Walter Smith, son of Pompea Smith, who started SEE-LA some 30 years ago and the sweat equity behind the café, says, “We source a lot of product from some of the lower-income markets, which helps support the farmers there,” crucial at a time when access to fresh fruits and vegetables is still rare in some of these neighborhoods.

The Farmer's Kitchen is also about education through eating. All of those delicious things on the menu this time of year, from the sugar-baby pumpkins to the Moroccan squash, are prepared in ways that help the community understand what to do with some of the more unusual produce when they get it home from the market. Kitchen visitors can also stock their pantries with goodies designed to preserve the incredible flavor of local ingredients to enjoy year-round. The Metro racks and fridges there are lined with delectable fare like Farmer's Kitchen Marinara and Ha's Apple Cider, pumpkin butter, vegetable leathers and dried heirloom beans, all from vendors at the area’s markets.  If you’re patient, you may even get the opportunity to crunch on the long-rumored Weiser potato chips, which are said to be coming soon. Proceeds from the café and these products are reinvested in SEE-LA and the participating farmers, helping further the over-arching goal of creating a sustainable urban food system.

If all those delicious edibles weren’t enough, the Farmer’s Kitchen intends to build on SEE-LA’s educational mission by offering community workshops in everything from food preservation to oyster shucking. Chef Gill Boyd is coordinating back-of-the-house externships for Cordon Bleu and Cal Poly Pomona students, giving them a great opportunity to experience a sustainable kitchen. Once the externship program is established, the Farmer’s Kitchen will also offer job training in the food service industry to needy people in the community. And Chef E, whom you may remember from his days at the Viper Room, focuses his energy on special projects, particularly catering, bringing farm-fresh produce to movie lots and corporate dinners.

The Farmer’s Kitchen
1550 Vine St. #19
(Sunset + Vine Building at the corner of Selma and Morningside Court)
Los Angeles 90028
Tuesday–Friday 11 am–3 pm and Sunday, 7 am–2 pm
hollywoodfarmerskitchen.org

LEAH GREENSTEIN is a Los Angeles–based food and wine writer, the author of the blog SpicySaltySweet.com and the co-author of the Food Blog Code of Ethics.