Amelia Saltsman's The Santa Monica Farmers Market Cookbook gives readers a wonderful window into one of the nation's most famous farmers markets, with seasonal recipes, grower profiles, and plenty of information about produce of all sorts.
Saltsman provides guides to shopping at a farmers market and recipes that will be delicious anywhere, but The Santa Monica Farmers Market Cookbook will be most useful in California, where blood orange, mulberries, and other specialty produce are relatively easy to find at markets. That said, there are plenty of recipes that use equally delicious but more pedestrian ingredients, such as farfalle with five herbs and cherry tomatoes, summery zucchini lemon soup, and plum crisp with cornmeal topping.
Beyond the lovely recipes, The Santa Monica Farmers Market Cookbook offers wonderfully pithy overviews of produce — from avocados to winter squash – with lively descriptions of the varieties, uses, and characteristics of each item.
