Late summer’s fruitful riches fill our Southern California farmers markets. The many varieties of apricots, peaches and nectarines tempt buyers with their perfume in a way that rock hard supermarket stone fruit can’t.

Buying direct from the growers can sometimes save you money, but variety and vine-ripened freshness are the real reasons for shopping at the farmer’s markets. Rather than the usual industrial cultivars, they’ll raise more flavorful fruit and vegetable varieties. Among the dozens of heirloom tomato varieties sold here, there’s a supersweet, flavor rich hybrid called Sungold, which was recently featured in Saveur Magazine’s Top 100 list. I’ve grown nine tomato plants in my garden plot this year, and the sungold hybrids are my clear favorite. Gardeners can buy seeds from Totally Tomato. (Thanks, Liza, for hooking me up with my seedlings!)

As a neophyte gardener, I’ve sponged off the market vendors for plant care advice, and lifted ideas for things to plant next season. I find without exception the farmers generously share their knowledge, and I value the markets as much for the producers as the produce.

Not all farmer’s markets are the same, though. My local Saturday market across from UC Irvine is Orange County’s biggest, but still pales in comparison to the biggies in L.A. County. These photos were taken at the Santa Monica organic market last Wednesday. The Santa Monica and Hollywood markets, held several times a week, draw the biggest number of vendors and top chefs who shop for locally grown produce.

Among them was a crew from Santa Monica’s bastion of California cuisine, Josie Restaurant. Chef de Cuisine Jill Davie stopped me and chatted because we were both wearing t shirts from Piggly Wiggly, the southern supermarket chain.

T shirt twins: Professor Salt & Chef Davie

Organic shallots from Windrose Farms. I’m using these to seed my garden this winter.

Does your supermarket sort fruit by ripeness?

For a list of farmer’s markets in the greater Los Angeles region, head over to LA Times list of local famer’s markets.

Barbecue contests are two day endurance events colored with bourbon, beer, and sleep deprivation. A remote mountaintop campsite in the middle of the California high desert therefore seems a fitting place for a swarm of barbecue junkies to camp out and fill the night air with sweet wood smoke. My teammates and I are still in our rookie year, and we aim to learn by competing in as many Southern California contests as we can this year.

This past weekend, the Silent Valley RV Club on the rim of Banning, California, hosted the first International Barbecue Cookers Association (IBCA) contest held outside of Texas. The IBCA is one of several sanctioning bodies that govern barbecue contests in the US, along with the Kansas City Barbecue Society and the Memphis Barbecue Association. Each body has different set of rules, but the bottom line for us rookies is to learn how to cook the best plate of meat we can and learn what it takes to win in each type of contest.
At this, my team’s second contest, Big Mista took home the second place trophy for the brisket category. The BBQ Junkie and I placed fourth in chicken and ribs, respectively, which ain’t so bad for a bunch of newbies. Follow the links to my teammates’ sites for more details on the contest.

After the excitement of walking on stage subsided, we still faced the task of packing up camp and driving over two hours home. In the spectrum of tiredness, I’d put barbecue contest tired right up there with moved a house tired. I’ve slagged the “sport” of barbecue by comparing it to bowling, bass fishing, or poker: a competition among fat guys drinking beer. But I learned that two days of driving, setting up equiment, cooking with little sleep and bursts of intense focus really take a toll on mental clarity in the critical, waning hours of the contest. I think I’ll have to work on this aspect to improve future results.

Speaking as someone with endurance sport credentials, I will stop dissing the sport of barbecue. It’s a different kind of endurance event with a more delicious ending.