Coming Back & Catching Capay Tomato!

As you'd imagine, we've gathered some great memories from farm events over the years. What you might not know is that it's the stories shared by those who visit, by many of you, that really allow us to experience the event in a whole new way - that make the very best stories.

Here's one such story shared with us by Nicola, on her own blog Growing Berries, and graciously reposted here so we could share it with all of you! 

By Nicola of Growing Berries
We have just returned to France, where we are living for a couple of years, after a four week visit to our home in California. When we first arrived back in the United States, for the home visit it seemed like we had so much time stretching ahead of us and I expected we would fill much of it doing some of the touristy things we never got around to whilst living here, like visiting Alcatraz or walking across the Golden Gate Bridge in its 75th anniversary year. The four weeks flew by though and those activities will have to stay on our bucket list as we chose to spend our time staying local, near friends and our favorite swimming pool, with my older daughters attending camps and more sleepovers than we could count!

On our final weekend though, we did fulfill a long held desire to attend the Tomato Festival, at Capay Farm. We started getting a Farm Fresh to You box about four years ago and it completely changed the way we ate. I already loved cooking at home, but starting our menu planning with the vegetables we had available rather than the meat seemed to be a much healthier approach and never quite knowing which seasonal vegetables were going to turn up in our box really got the whole family trying new foods on a weekly basis.

We had attended lots of open days at the farm in every season whilst we lived here, but the heirloom tomato festival in the summer never seemed to fall at a good time for us. This year though we finally made it with our good friends who share our love for the contents of those boxes.

The farm is about an hour and a half's drive north of our home in the East Bay and looked so green and pretty in the perfect weather that blessed the day of the festival. Tractor rides took visitors around the fields, filled at this time of year with summer squash and asparagus.

There were plenty of activities for the little ones. Arts and crafts, hula hoops, herb salt making and my daughter Florence's favourite...

...bubbles!

The main event though was the Heirloom Tomato Tasting.

Not only did the family who run Capay Organic pioneer organic farming in the region, farmer's markets and fresh produce delivery, they also reintroduced heirloom tomatoes to our table. Here's how...

What a great story!

Now, although those organic boxes have got my kids eating carrots, pistachios, spinach and even kale, my eldest daughters, India, Georgia and Savannah still maintain that they hate tomatoes and cannot usually be persuaded to eat them. I think they may have been converted though after this weekend. All three girls tried and liked the huge variety of tomatoes on offer.

Someone who doesn't need any persuading to eat a tomato though is Florence. She adores them and she was in tomato tasting heaven here.

The party continued with live music.

Just a few more tomatoes.

And dancing.

A wonderful day out in the fresh air with good food, great company and more tomatoes than you can eat.

Miam! Miam!  

Thank you again to Nicola and be sure to check out her blog for more amazing photos and tales of her family's adventures.

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