Local Food: Blue Goose Produce

The latest darling in the Sacramento localvore scenery is undoubtedly Granite Bay's Regionale. The upscale produce market in Quarry Pond's has a good selection of local and not so local produce but the prices are a little higher than one might hope for (okay, quite a bit higher...the same German butterball potatoes I'd just bought at Newcastle Produce for $1.50/lb were selling for $2.99/lb at Regionale!) and it is a long way from Fair Oaks.

However, if you're interested in local produce at lower prices and not quite so far away, let me recommend Loomis' Blue Goose Produce on Historic Route 40. Located in the old Loomis train station, Blue Goose Produce offers local fruits and vegetables, all natural pork from Sheridan's Coffee Pot Ranch, local grass-fed beef, and mandarin products from Westview Growers, a mandarin farm located in Newcastle.



While you're shopping, you can talk with the mandarin farmer or, if you're lucky like we were, taste some of her homemade mandarin cake . Or you can talk with one of the other ladies working the till...perhaps the one whose beef is in the freezer or the one whose persimmons are for sale.

Blue Goose Produce is a real gem in the local food scene and shopping there gives you a good chance to meet your food's producers.

Blue Goose Produce
3550 Taylor Road
Loomis CA
916-652-8341

August 27, 2004

Inspired by Laksa's food blog on eGullet and by Russ Parson's article on Laotian vegetables in last Wednesday's LA Times (no link other than to the Food Section as they expire too quickly), I decided to buy "different" vegetables at the market today:



Clockwise starting with the herbs: parsley, cilantro, Thai eggplants, daikon, burdock root (labelled as "gobo" at the market), loofah squash (yes, just like the sponge!), bitter melon 1, bitter melon 2, jalapenos, and--on the plate in the middle--raw peanuts.

I really have no plan for these veggies but I've got some vague and rather nebulous ideas about what flavours I want. I did pick up some organic red lentils a few weeks ago and Wayde bought some halibut today. He's got his fish marinating in a sauce made of mayonnaise, sriracha sauce, and a whiff of soy sauce. I think the veggies will go well with those flavours. Maybe with some rice noodles?

We'll see!