good morning i'm erica francis with city of holland t v and today we're here at the down town hall in farmer's market an eighth street right next to the civic center this is the first of a six part series titled market watch where we bring you the fun and exciting things happening right here at the farmer's market each saturday morning chef series invades the farmers market area chefs are invited to demonstrate how to use fresh seasonal and locally grown ingredients to help prepare a simple meal straight from the market today we're going to learn all about the chef series an even more about zucchini today we have christine farris here who is the owner of christine family's catering thank you so much for joining me today christine can you tell me a little bit about yourself well i was born in michigan grew up in the country and my mother had a huge garden when i was little so we spent lots of time in the summer working in the garden and canning and freezing foods and i've always had a love of cooking and i went to cohen every school after high school and i went to come in every school in california and it was the middle of the farmer's market was really getting going there took a little longer to get to michigan when i was in calling area school the farmers markets were already well underway and alice waters one of the premier chefs who promotes farmers markets across the country was still small enough that she came to our school and would demonstrate with us and we'd go to farmer's market so it's been in my blood my whole life so i'm so excited to be a part of this well there's an amazing story i didn't think i would ask you that i get such a detailed thing out of you can you tell me a little bit about where you work right now well i have a catering company here in holland and redo  all artisan style handmade foods featuring mostly local ingredients i'm down at the farmers market every wednesday and every saturday rain and shine from the first one to the last one you'll see me down here hand picking all the fruits and vegetables  caters very cool on tell me what your favorite thing is about your job you know my favorite thing about my job there's so many aspects i mean i've been doing this over twenty five years and i have a stack of cookbooks beside my bed and i'm  just fanatical about new recipes and new ways to cook things but i think my favorite thing is having the vision and thinking about it and then having the meetings with my clients and then during the party seeing their guests walking around enjoying themselves and having a great time to seeing all the work that went into it just come to fruition and we're pleasing a whole crowd of people and i love that yeah that's awesome is there anything that inspires you particularly about cooking oh everything inspires me when i go to the art museum i'm inspired by the beauty and the colors and when i go to a restaurant and have a wonderful meal i'm inspired when i'm walking through a farmer's market and i see the most beautiful peaches that are over there i just want to take them home and first eat them in taste them and then they will inspire me whether it's making a ginger peach crisp or a peach salsa for grilled chicken i mean everything is just so exciting down here it's hard not to be inspired that that how did you get involved with this whole chef series well i have been coming to farmer's market for years and years and just talking to all the farmers at the different booths i think cindy maybe market manager might have heard of me and recommended me so that's how i think it happened but i've just been ingrained with the farmer's market for so long that i really have no idea how it happened how much do you love it here it's just one of your favorite thing and i have to admit the same thing happens every year at the last farmer's market i always cry as i'm leaving the the last booth and going back to my car a little to hear trickles down because i know it's over for another season but the seasons are extended every year going a little bit longer and visitors farm actually delivers produce to my kitchen year round now so so maybe this year i won't cry they'll be enough you're wrong produce to get us through all right well i'm so excited to see what you have to cook so do you want to take a walk around and pick out your supplies for today sounds good all right let's fertile there and this makes a really good tasting everything they grow is just really delicious so i always come here to see what they have and the best salad greens in the world that broccoli looks really good what makes it bumpy like that some guy like for my demo today what's your favorite kind of guy like here thirty eight because i'm always on a mission and i want to get the best produce yet and sometimes i just have like a handful of something really awesome and it's on eight o'clock really i get down here nice and early to try to get super good  on the corner and they do so much for farmers market they put together a bag every week for the farmer who's for the chef who is demonstrating i try to give them and they always have other kids the blossoms which a lot of people aren't familiar with so i thought i'd be fun just to talk about those for a minute even though i'm not going to cook them in the demo they've got some onions and then we stop to fat blossom farm and get some of their awesome garlic they had how many kinds like five kinds of garlic and i mean it was fun they told us the different flavors of the garlic and then i got some flowers i've got a dinner at my kitchen tomorrow night for a group of people so i picked up some flowers for the table yes that was certainly fun and those are so beautiful tell me what are some quick easy recipes you can make with zucchini well first of all i think the easiest thing to do with it is to saute it up with a little garlic and use it as your side vegetable and with olive oil or butter that's a really simple thing another thing you can do if you're on a low carb diet or if you're on a gluten free diet substitute zucchini strips for lasagna noodles and make a list but i never would of known that can you tell us why you're going to be cooking today well today we're going to do appetizers and the first one we're  get started thank you so much that thank you zucchini so i decided to limit myself to africa as i do a lot of appetizers and i think it's a lot of fun to have a party with just lots of little appetizers so we're going to demonstrate three recipes today really pretty amazing i'd be great with a little red pepper in there so really the point of the russia game is just to get a lot of the liquid out so i don't really even feel very already  but if you ever see a kid i'm really cheap and we are back again that demonstration was outstanding i was sitting back there and like everything smells amazing it looks amazing tell me again what is this well this is the zucchini fritters zucchini lot keys that we made and it's creat zucchini with fresh basil and onion and bound together with a little egg and flour and it makes a great base for hors d'oeuvres you can just do sour cream on it or cup and whatever your favorite little topping on there would you like to try what i would love to t piece that is so god oh my goodness i've taken my work no side i have to ask you more questions and that's outstanding and i've heard from so many people that you were just amazing and one guy said that you just catered his wedding and that they loved you and that you were to the mazing chefs and it was really fun and i get so attached to people because when you work on a wedding you know you spend a lot of time together and then when i see the bride going down the aisle i get all choked up known it's a lot of fun my job is i'm very lucky yeah that sounds like an awesome job i've got a few quick questions for you if you could make one meal and thirty minutes what do you think you would make while you know what i would do today  i think i would get some rack of lamb and cut it into individual lollies and rub some rosemary and garlic on it and grill it gets an heirloom tomatoes and slice them up and put a little fresh basil on them and then i would get some pasta from the pasta maker down there and boil that up and just put a tiny bit of truffle oil and a little cheese on top of my dinner and really seriously that would take thirty minutes and be awesome you know cooking sounds like just something that an artist would do you know how they're like i would take the blue paint the red paint splashed on here it sounds like cooking is just the exact same thing but with food it's even more than two dimensional you've got the tastes and smells and all kinds of things and so yeah i love what i do so good to hear one question for you what do you think is the hardest dish you've ever cooked before that's a tough question you know some of the desserts that i used to make were so labor intensive you know and then you get five dollars a slice  the restaurant for them but i would have some desserts where you would make a sponge cake and then you had to make a chocolate mousse and then you had to temper chocolate to make a good nash on top of it and get the temperatures perfect and everything so you could have the right layer of moves and  i wouldn't call it difficult as much as just labor intensive and time consuming but having patience and understanding the chemistry behind what you're making really helps it come out right well very cool and thank  much for joining us today would you like to tell our audience how they can contact you sure thank you you can check me out at my website which is c f catering dot com or you can get ahold of me six one six four nine four zero nine two three well awesome thank you again so much and thank you for talking us all about zucchini and thank you for watching us i look forward to bringing you more sights and sounds from the down town hall and farmer's market have a great day i'm erica francis