Takeout Food

Several mornings a week, in the quiet hour just before dawn, a dozen farmers from every corner of Ventura County quietly load their flatbed trucks with their just-picked crops.

Maybe there will be strawberries from Oxnard, Swiss chard and English peas from Camarillo, navel oranges from Ojai, Fuji apples from Cuyama, or (since this is Easter week) buckets of blooming pastel tulips, iris, renunculus and sweet peas from greenhouses, plus bundles of leeks, lettuces, artichokes and broccoli--whatever is in peak season.

As the sun comes up, each farmer is rolling out with a heavily laden truck, heading south.

Wednesday’s destination was downtown Santa Monica, which puts on the state’s largest farmers market every week.

Along about Mugu Rock on Highway 1, as the sun barely strikes the Pacific, the flatbed trucks and pickups begin to encounter one another. Someone toots a horn, someone else waves.

The caravan has begun. Granted, it’s a loosely strung, ragtag caravan--no one makes a serious effort to stay in formation. But all the farmers, who have been doing this for years, know they have old friends just ahead or behind on the road.

There’s Daisy Tamai of Oxnard’s 50-year-old Tamai Farms driving a pickup loaded with her fresh-baked strawberry cheesecakes packed in dry ice. Her brother, Jason, is on another family truck, loaded with Camarosa strawberries and bundles of tender, sweet artichokes, which Santa Monicans will snatch up like chocolates. Their dad, Jim Tamai, began farming in Oxnard in 1951.

Another old name in Ventura County farming is the McGrath family, whose truck eases out of its fields in Camarillo and soon threads into the caravan.

Then there is Angela Goldberg of Oxnard’s Skyline Flowers. Her truck smells divine, weighed down by huge buckets of yellow and pink tulips and renunculus.

Patricia Kosmo, who grows Fuji apples at her Cuyama Valley ranch, joins the mix. Her dried Fuji apples are in demand down south.

Jack Kohara from Oxnard’s Shigeru Nursery filled buckets with delicately pink sweet peas before he left Oxnard. “They were all snapped up early in the morning,” he says later.

Maryann Carpenter of Camarillo’s Coastal Organics was loaded down with leeks and baby carrots. “They maybe go for the designer or baby vegetables more in Los Angeles,” said Daisy Tamai.

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Ventura County farmers converge in downtown Santa Monica before 8 a.m. and, alongside farmers from other counties, set up kiosks on Arizona and 2nd streets near Third Street Promenade.

They open for business at 9 a.m. and close down the state’s largest “plein-air” grocery store by 2 p.m.

McGrath employee Paul Thurston will find that by noon, his supply of sweet, organic shelled English peas has dwindled to one measly packet.

“Restaurants love them,” Thurston said.

If all this sounds like Ventura County’s small farmers are sending the cream of their crops to the big city while we settle for leftovers, that isn’t the case.

Los Angeles County merely gets to share what Ventura County is used to.

Most medium- to small-sized farms also sell their plump, juicy, tender edibles at Ventura County markets.

For instance, Daisy Tamai’s fruit and chocolate cheesecakes are available seven days at week at Lupita’s Bakery at 2631 Vineyard Ave. in Oxnard.

McGrath Family Farms has reopened its Central Market at 1012 W. Ventura Blvd. in Camarillo for the season.

Still, those who go to Los Angeles tend to agree that Angeleno shoppers are pickier, according to April Garcia, who works with the Tamai family at markets. “They want more perfect vegetables,” Garcia said. “Like with corn, they want the kernels all in a row all the way to the tip.”

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Tips of the Week: Tender, sweet artichokes at Tamai Farms stands at Saturday and Wednesday farmers’ markets in Ventura, ranging from 75 cents to $1.25, depending on size.

The organic English peas at McGrath Farms Central Market in Camarillo. They can be eaten raw, like candy. $3.25 per pound in the shell, or $8.50 a pound, shelled.