Sunday at the MV Farmer’s Market, The Green booth will host the founders of Your Daily Thread, an online magazine for the eco-curious, and I totally recommend coming out to meet them.

Oh, and I understand there’s some sort of sporting event on Sunday as well.

Tomorrow morning at the Farmer’s Market, Jennifer Taggert of The Smart Mama will be in the Green Booth with her lead-testing ray-gun. OK, it’s not a ray gun, but it kind of looks like one, and she’ll be using it to test for lead in toys, so bring in any suspect items your kids may have received over the holidays and find out if they contain lead. It should be very instructive.

Today’s shopper is Sara Davenport, owner of Broadway Skin Studio, a full service medical spa specializing in skin rejuvenation and facial contouring. Sara is going to make guacamole. She takes 2 avocados, peels and chops them, but takes care not to mash them into a paste. She then chops 1 beefsteak tomato, 1/2 a red onion, and a habanero pepper (which is spicy-hot, so use at your discretion) and adds it all to the avocado. The she juices 2 lemons and does a final mix, again, trying to leave it chunky. Delicious!

And you can eat it with these chips sold right here at the market! Plus you can order your holiday tamales here, too — but hurry! December 20th is fast approaching…

Today at the Green Booth, the Master Gardeners (Sharon Moore and Sarah Spitz) were on hand to give out plant samples and seeds again, and to answer your gardening questions. They’ll be guests of the Green Committee once a month, so check back next time.

New at the market today: Lark farms from Fillmore, with Hot House tomatoes. Welcome!

Saturday and Sunday, PeachTree Pottery is holding its 4th Annual Holiday Art Show, 1 – 5pm, 3795 Boise Ave., MV 90066.

Saturday evening, the newly-formed Mar Vista Chamber of Commerce will be meeting. 6 – 8pm, 12085 Venice Blvd. RSVP and more details here.

Sunday morning, at the Mar Vista Farmer’s Market (and all the rest of the Sundays in December as well), the Mar Vista Arts and Crafts Collective will be selling their wares — just in time for holiday shopping! 9am – 2pm, Grand View Blvd. @ Venice Blvd.

Sunday afternoon, I’ll be co-hosting, along with the moms from InspireThe Change, a holiday sale in a lovely private home here in Mar Vista. 1 -6pm, 3961 East Blvd. Click here for more details.

Today’s shopper is Jeanne Kuntz, of TeachingWellness.com, and she’s going to make a Salad Fry. It’s a great way to combine a warm dish with a salad feel, and it’s completely customizable with whatever foods you like and can find in season, or whatever leftovers you have lying around. Here we go! She starts with a bed of lettuce — in this case, red leaf — and chops up the veggies that won’t be cooked, like radishes, cucumbers, and green onions. Then she takes some of the red chard and does a little “salt & sugar massage” on it, to kind of tenderize it and get the flavors going. (Essentially, she chops up some of the leaves and rubs them with a little salt and sugar, then adds them to the bed of lettuce.) Then she slices some onions and sautes them slowly in a cast iron skillet, letting them get really cooked down. Then she adds balsamic vinegar and lets it reduce. Then she adds the beets, after they’ve been sliced thin (think julienne), then the peppers,sugar snap peas and carrots, all chopped. When the vegetables are mostly cooked, she adds more olive oil to the pan, as much as you would add if you were making dressing for the salad, then some chopped walnuts, and then she turns off the heat and adds crumbled up feta cheese, so it just starts to melt a tiny bit. The whole mixture goes over the bed of lettuce and is tossed. And you’re done: Salad Fry! I’m hungry just thinking about it.

Today in the Green Booth, Arthur Renaud of The ReUse People, was their guest, explaining about this organization dedicated to harvesting reusable building materials from demolition sites and making them available through their retail stores. It’s a very cool idea and I urge you to check them out the next time you’re remodeling.

Last chance for peaches! (Who says we don’t have seasons in California?) Winter approaches and this summer fruit won’t be around long; get ‘em while they’re ripe! And as one season ends, another begins: it’s Satsuma time. Get your vitamin C in this cute little package.

Today’s shopper is Kami Turrou, a Mar Vista mom whose kids go to Richland Ave. Elementary. She’s on the board of their booster club, RichlandBooster.com, and you can make a donation anytime on their site.

Kami’s going to make a carrot/yogurt salad. She starts by grating these multi-colored carrots and adding these honey crisp apples all chopped up. Toss in a handful of raisins, then mix with lowfat vanilla yogurt and a bit of honey to taste until it sort of resembles cole slaw. Delish!! And here’s a picture of it ready-to-eat: Thanks, Kami!

Today at the Green Booth, Sarah Pugh (and her daughter Hannah) of  Outside Landscape Design were on hand to show examples of drought tolerant, California native and sustainable plants. New at the Market today: pomegranates and persimmons are in season. And for the kids: The Real Princesses were painting faces and at the ReDiscover booth kids could make these cool fuzzy felt balls.

Today’s shopper is Carley Knobloch, of Mothercraft Coaching, a site that’s all about helping moms figure out who they are besides being moms. She’s awesome and so is her site! Plus she’s going to make a fantastic dish for us today: Butternut squash soup. She starts by halving the squash, removing the seeds, and filling the cavities with salt, pepper, a little balsamic vinegar and sage, then she roasts it in a 350-degree oven for about an hour, cut side down. She also roasts a head of garlic at the same time, placing it in foil and adding a little olive oil on top. While they’re roasting, she rinses and chops 2 leeks, and peels and dices 2 apples. When the roasting is nearly complete, she sautes the leeks and apples in 1/2 and 1/2 butter and olive oil (about 2 tablespoons each) in a soup pot, just until translucent. She then scoops out the squash and squeezes out the garlic deliciousness and adds them both to the pot. As it starts to warm up, she adds vegetable stock (or you could use chicken stock) and some water — enough to cover the vegetables — and brings it to a simmer for about 15 minutes. Then she uses her handy immersion blender — or you could use a regular blender, just being careful to not overfill it — and you’re done! Carley garnishes it with either fried sage or homemade croutons, which she makes by cubing up some sourdough bread, tossing them with olive oil, salt and pepper, and roasting at 350 for about 10 minutes. Sounds delish!

Today in the Green Booth, Marcia Hanscom, co-Director of the Ballona Institute, (shown here with Green Committee co-Chair Sherri Akers) was on hand to let people know about the ongoing efforts to preserve the wetlands.

And today was the annual celebration of the Day of the Dead (Dia de Los Muertos), so there was a traditional altar on display, Dino Castro and his band performed, and my son’s 5th grade class from Grand View Blvd. Elementary School’s Dual Language program put on a play, all in Spanish. And yes, I helped my son (and husband) make the stage decorations. Aren’t they nice?

Today’s shopper is Dr. Susanne Bennett, a holistic chiropractor who also founded a line of skin care products called Purigenex. She’s going to make her organic heirloom tomato bolognese sauce.  She starts with 6 – 7 cloves of garlic, minced, and about 2/3 of a yellow onion, chopped and sautes them in grape seed oil in a big iron wok. As they start to soften, she adds ground organic, free range sirloin beef she gets from Whole Foods. (Note: if you’d prefer to make this a vegetarian meal then just skip the meat — the rest of the recipe is the same.)  Once the meat is browned, she adds 5 – 6 tomatoes, which she’s chopped and removed most of the seeds. She cooks this for about 30 minutes and then adds about 1/3 cup of this amazing organic tomato paste from Italy called Bionaturae (which by the way comes in a glass jar). The she adds salt and pepper to taste, then some chopped italian parsley, oregano and rosemary, and at this point she adds about 1/2 cup of olive oil. Dr. Bennett says the grapeseed oil is better for the initial cooking because it can go to a higher temperature; the olive oil is great to add at this point because it helps thicken the sauce and it’s being used at a point that won’t expose it to high heat. Basil goes in at the very end, chopped slightly, and then again for a garnish as you serve it. She serves it over brown rice pasta. It sounds fantastic and I wish I had some right now!

Today in the Green Booth I co-hosted (along with Annie Barnes of Inspire The Change) a group of Mom Bloggers presenting ideas for No-Waste lunches. This is us: Me (Mar Vista Mom), Emily Carey of ScrappyNaps, Jennifer Taggert of The Smart Mama, Melissa Davis of Melissa’s Food Blog, and Annie Barnes of Inspire The Change.) Elizabeth Rietz of Whining N Dining joined us later as well. We had many donated products on display (which we’ll be giving away next week — check back on both our blogs), as well as products we currently use in our own kids’ lunches. Check back Tuesday for the contest to begin! We’ll be giving away a GoodByn lunch box, a GoGreen Lunch box, a Laptop Lunch box, 3 sets of Snack Taxis, a ScrappyNaps placemat and napkin set, 2 Kleen Kanteen drink bottles (courtesy of BuyGreen), a bottle of Fruit and Veggie Clean spray from Rebel Green, a Tasty Lunch Tote by Built and 2 Rubbermaid Litterless drink bottles.

Save The Dates: The Farmer’s Market will be holding TWO festivals on the next TWO Sundays. Next Sunday (10/25) is their annual Halloween celebration and November 1st is their Day Of The Dead extravaganza. Don’t miss either one!

Friday night is the All-Girl Revue at the Fanatic Salon. I highly recommend it! Those women will make you laugh, I guarantee it. Starts at 8pm.

Saturday morning 10am E-Waste recycling at Whole Foods on National Blvd. First 25 people will receive a gift bag!

Saturday afternoon Mar Vista Walkabout. Come help design the future of our neighborhood! 1pm – 4pm. Details here.

Sunday at the Farmer’s Market Annie Barnes of InspireTheChange.com and I will be in the Green Booth all day presenting options for No-Waste lunches. Come by and say hi! 9am – 2pm.

Ongoing throughout the Weekend the old Fox Hills Mall has been reborn as Westfield Culver City and they’re having a Grand Opening this weekend, plus fun family events all through next week. KCRW will be there. It’s also Macy’s Shop for a Cause on Saturday: special deals and money donated to deserving non-profits.