When I relocated to D.C. from New York, I had no idea I was moving to a food desert. Although Dupont Circle wasn't poor by any means, we had limited access to healthy, fresh food. There was one small supermarket we called the "Soviet" Safeway because there were usually long lines and nothing on the shelves. The produce there was pitiful: The tomatoes, picked green and reddened with ethylene gas, could break your teeth.

FreshFarm arrived in 1997 and it started a chain reaction: there are now some 40 other farmers markets within 10 miles of the original site in Dupont Circle. Farmers markets are booming nationwide despite "relatively little support from the federal government," the article notes. Negin offers some thoughts on how the government can do a better job. His organization, in fact, has issued a full report on the subject. Read more here.

Photo by AgnosticPreachersKid/Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

That's supposed to happen on April 3, along with a half-hour shift for opening operations. The hours of operation will start at 8:30 a.m. and end at 1 p.m. There will also be a Compost Cab, "a clean, convenient and cost-effective pick-up service for your organic food waste," according to a media advisory.

Photo by Flickr user randomduck using an Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic Creative Commons license

Whether you believe it or not, I'm pretty sentimental about the things I care about.  Glory still makes me weep every time I watch that scene on the beach. This little guy will forever own a piece of my heart. And around this time of year, I begin to mourn the loss of good, fresh-from-the-vine heirloom tomatoes.

Not that there's an immediate need for grief counseling:  Fresh tomatoes, for example, will be available at FRESHFARM Markets until the third or fourth week of September (perhaps even longer given how the freakishly hot weather has affected plants this season). And just as tantalizing, chef Robert Weland will be offering his all-tomato 20 Bites tasting menu through September at Poste Moderne Brasserie. This week's Young & Hungry column, due out tomorrow, is all about Weland's extensive take on the tomato.

As a small tease for the column, take a look at one of Weland's opening courses, something he calls a "crudite" of garden tomatoes. I prefer to call it my own tomato garden right at the table. Darrow Montgomery's gorgeous photo is after the jump.

Photos by Darrow Montgomery

Lots of places are taking the 40th anniversary of Earth Day pretty damn serious this year. Consider Bread & Brew off Dupont Circle. The restaurant is going 100 percent vegan today, no doubt an acknowledgment of the role meat production plays in global warming (though not as much as originally thought).

In a similar vein, the new eco-friendly chain, Mixt Greens, which came out of the gate fast in D.C., is offering free tote bags to the first 150 customers who visit one of its three local shops. The bags will include packets of herb seeds and recipes from chef/co-founder Andrew Swallow's new cookbook, Mixt Salads, which hits stores next week.

There's even an event today at the Phillips Collection in which Nora Pouillon, (the founding mother of organic cooking in D.C.), Mark Toigo (the founder of Toigo Orchards), and winemaker Bob Lyons discuss the impact that artist Georgia O'Keeffe had on their careers. FRESHFARM Markets' co-director Ann Yonkers will moderate the discussion, which will be followed by some small plates that Pouillon derived from the O'Keeffe-inspired cookbook, A Painter's Kitchen. (The discussion starts at 6:30; $15 for the public; free for Phillips members.)

Then there's the Earth Day promotion over at McFadden's, the Irish pub that views the green movement in a different way. If you wear something green tomorrow at the West End bar, you can drink free from 7 to 8 p.m. A lot of damage can be done in that small window of opportunity.

Oh, yes, the first 100 patrons get Earth Day tote bags at McFadden's, too. I suspect that won't be the draw.

For more Earth Day related events, check the Washingtonian's calendar, NBC Washington's roundup, or the list compiled by Dining in D.C.

Just remember: No puking on Mother Earth during Earth Day.

UPDATE: 2:20 p.m. Friday
You think the blizzard was tough on you? Try being a winter farmer with a greenhouse to tend. Keeping those hothouses warm and wired to electricity was a challenge for a number of regional farmers.

Regardless, many of them plan to make the long drive in and sell their produce at our area farmers markets this weekend. Here's a quick check on the winter markets and whether they're open:

• FRESHFARM Market Dupont Circle will be open.  Spring Valley Farm and Wollam Gardens will be no shows this weekend.
• FRESHFARM Market Silver Spring The Silver Spring market switched to year-round service just this year. It plans to be open on Saturday. It's unknown which vendors will arrive.
• Eastern Market Outdoor Farmers Market The outdoor market will be open and following its usual hours.
• Arlington Farmers Market The market will be open as usual on Saturday. Most of the vendors are expected to be there.
• Bethesda United Church of Christ Farmers Market Twin Springs Fruit Farm will be selling its usual produce inside the church at Fernwood Road and Democracy Boulevard on Saturday, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
• Takoma Park Farmers Market They've plowed the streets and will be ready for business on Sunday. Most of the winter vendors are expected to be there.
• Montgomery Farm Women's Cooperative Market No word yet on whether this market will open.
• Alexandria Farmers Market Now word on whether this market will open, either.
• Smart Market Oakton The producer-only market, launched two years ago, will be open at the Unity of Fairfax Church in Oakton from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Smart's Tuesday market at 11895 Grand Commons Avenue will also be open.
• La Plata Farmers Market in Charles County will be open or at least, "I haven't heard anything to the contrary," says a spokesperson. The market is located at Charles Street and Washington Avenue in the courthouse parking lot in La Plata.

Y&H will provide updates as they arrive.

Y&H had a hard time extracting himself from the office by the start of the FreshFarms Market by the White House yesterday, so I missed all the politico-celebrity speech-making. Fortunately, there were only, say, a thousand other journalist covering that angle. So I focused on, you know, the food. It's a farmers market after all, even if it's one as much about symbolism as produce.

Check out Y&H's photos after the jump.

Vidalia chef R.J. Cooper stopped by the market to pick up what he called "red rattlesnake" beans. He was thinking about making a succotash out of them.

At the market, Spring Valley Farms was calling Cooper's produce by another name: "bird egg beans."

The tomatoes were still looking and smelling so good that Y&H picked up a bag of them for home.

This intergenerational team from Cedarbrook Farm was grilling up some fine sweet Italian sausages.

Brussel sprouts so fresh and green that even a hater could love 'em.

Rain served as nature's own mist sprayer for the inaugural White House market.

These giant loaves of pane Pugliese from Quail Creek Farms were so gorgeous I thought about buying one — before I realized how much of the loaf would likely go to waste.

Y&H should have known he'd love spicy food one day. I used to eat radishes straight from the garden as a kid.

Some great looking organic garlic from Blueberry Hill Vegetables.

Mmmm, corn on the cob.

Interviews were as much a part of the White House farmers market as vegetables. Y&H spoke with Bernadine Prince (above), with FreshFarm Markets, who said about 2,000 people visited the inaugural White House market yesterday, which is a promising start (though way behind the 6,000 folks who visit the Dupont Circle market on a good day). The FreshFarm Market by the White House is still in its exploratory stage, but Prince thinks there are enough federal workers in the area — 3,000 by her best guess — to keep the market going into the future.

The traffic is outrageous on Vermont Ave. during rush hour!

No one needs to tell you, least of all Y&H, that in this blog-eat-blog, 24-hour news-cycle world everyone is required to have an opinion. But, really, shouldn't everyone wait until the object under criticism has actually opened?

I'm speaking about the new FreshFarm Market by the White House, which the busy non-profit opens today with guest appearances from First Lady Michelle Obama, Mayor Adrian Fenty, and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack.  Last month, Mother Jones was first out of the block in predicting dark things about the market:

[I]f this idea becomes reality, the Obamas should be careful to make it a sustainable market for local farmers rather than a kitschy tourist attraction bogged down by pins and t-shirts that say "Yes We Can Farm" and "Change We Can Grow In." But let's face it, due to the massive security detail the market would require and the overwhelming draw for Washingtonians and tourists alike, the latter is more likely.

(Just for the record, Capital Spice has an excellent run-down of the vendors, none of which appear to be hawking pins and t-shirts.)

WTOP continued the early hand-wringing with a story about potential rush-hour traffic snarls:

Word has been circulating through local Advisory Neighborhood Commissions in D.C. and has some on edge.

"I take this road every day, and imagine this will worsen gridlock since 15th Street just north of this block is a major northbound artery out of town," writes a concerned resident to WTOP. "There are so many roads already closed for security, it will only make the H street corridor even worse."

WTOP followed that story with another worrying piece today. But leave it to Obama Foodorama, the take-no-statement-on-its-face blog, to put those traffic fears to rest. The picture above comes from ObFo, which snapped it at 4:55 p.m. yesterday, presumably a rush-hour period.

ObFo also smacks down a lot of the media frenzy over who exactly conceived the idea for the White House market and whether the First Lady had a hand in it. Frankly, Y&H thinks this last issue is a tempest in a teapot. If the White House did have a hand in the market's creation, perhaps even helping to push it along, then good on the Obamas. It's an abuse of presidential power that I can live with.

Photo via Obama Foodorama

During a week in which when we learned that the D.C. area had placed not one but two toques on the upcoming season of Top Chef, I'm pleased to report that Y&H readers were far more interested in the closing of an icon, Nathans in Georgetown. We are not, it seems, complete tools of the reality TV industry.

In fact, the second most-read item this week concerned food stamps at farmers markets. I'd say all this fall-of-the-American-empire talk is way premature.

The most-read blog posts of the week:

1. Breaking News: Nathans in Georgetown Is Closing
2. FRESHFARM to Double Value of Food Stamps to Break the Yuppie Stranglehold on Farmers Markets
3. Food Blogger Kim O'Donnel Is Leaving WaPo for True/Slant
4. A Tale of Two White House Gardens: Toxic or Not?
5. Young & Hungry Dining Guide by the Day: Granville Moore's
   

The question is particularly relevant in D.C., where, according to the Mayor's Office, 105,751 residents are food stamp recipients. How many of them do you think shop at the Dupont Circle market when they have to eat on, essentially, $3 a day? A couple of years ago, a few members of Congress took up the challenge to eat for a week on a food stamp budget. Trust me, they weren't shopping at farmers markets.  Sometimes, they ate crappy food, just like the experts say the poor do.

Today, FRESHFARM Markets, a local nonprofit dedicated to bringing local farmers and urban eaters together, announced that it will double the value of government-issued food stamps (and other relief coupons) at two of its Saturday markets: the one on H Street NE and the other in Silver Spring.  According to a FRESHFARM release, these markets were " targeted for the initiative because they are in neighborhoods that have a significant number of residents who receive financial assistance to buy healthier food."

So how can farmers at FRESHFARM markets afford to, in essence, cut their prices in half for such a potentially large pool of shoppers? The nonprofit, according to a publicist, received a grant from Wholesome Wave Foundation to cover the costs. The grant lasts through the end of the market season, which is November for H Street NE and December for Silver Spring.

FRESHFARM says more funding is pending to expand the program. The full text of the release is after the jump.

July 7, 2009 (Washington, DC) — A new grant to FRESHFARM Markets, a Washington, DC nonprofit, from the Wholesome Wave Foundation will enable low-income residents to double the amount of food they can get at two local farmers' markets when they use government-provided EBT/SNAP food stamps, Women and Infant Coupons (WIC) or coupons from the Senior Farmers' Market Nutrition Program (SFMNP). Additional funding is pending to expand the program.

"This grant is greatly significant to FRESHFARM Markets as it provides us with an opportunity to provide additional benefits to residents who might not normally shop at our markets and to help educate them on the importance of fresh, healthy fruits and vegetables in their daily diets," stated Bernadine Prince, co-director of FRESHFARM Markets. "National research has shown that people who have access to affordable, healthy food from the markets will continue to shop there after they have been exposed to the benefits of fresh food from local farms."

The H Street, NE FRESHFARM Market and Silver Spring FRESHFARM Market locations are targeted for the initiative because they are in neighborhoods that have a significant number of residents who receive financial assistance to buy healthier food. Both FRESHFARM Markets are seasonal and are open this year on Saturdays. The H Street, NE FRESHFARM Market, at 625 H St. NE (across from the H Street Self Storage) is open from 9:00 AM until 12:00 PM May through November 21, 2009, and the Silver Spring FRESHFARM Market, on the pedestrian mall on Ellsworth Drive, is open from 9:00 AM until 1:00 PM May through December 19, 2009. Market staff will be available under the Market Information Tent at each location to answer questions and assist shoppers with converting their food stamps and other coupons into market "double dollars" that they can use to purchase healthy, local food from the farmers.

FRESHFARM Markets, a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization, was founded in 1997, starting with the opening of the market at DuPont Circle. Inspired by a vision of a more sustainable regional food system, the markets were created not only to connect urban residents with local farmers, but also to educate the public about food and farming issues, and to provide tangible economic opportunities for farmers. As of 2009, FREHSFARM Markets operates eight producer-only farmers' markets in the Washington, DC metro area with farmers from Pennsylvania, Maryland, West Virginia, Virginia and Delaware. More information is available at www.freshfarmmarkets.org.