The vernal equinox happens on Tuesday, March 19 and right on cue, the Santa Monica Farmers Market is alive with signs of spring — like sugar snap peas. That's one of the items Alicia Kemper and Marie Delbarry are buying for Mangette, their new French cafe in Long Beach. There, chef Noe Duran prepares them two ways, in a soup and a salad. Pureed with potatoes from Weiser Family Farms and infused with a bit of mint, the soup is served lukewarm to avoid overpowering the subtle flavor of the peas. The salad is tossed with a whey vinaigrette, with the whey coming from yogurt they make in-house. "We just really enjoy the expression of the sugar snap peas," Kemper says. "It's so delicate and pure and has such a lovely flavor."
To preserve the subtle flavor of sugar snap peas, chef Noe Duran of Mangette in Long Beach makes a pureed soup with them. Photo courtesy of Mangette.
Kemper and Delbarry also own Buvons, the wine store next to Mangette. This weekend, they're hosting a pop-up, selling lobster rolls and fish filet sandwiches in their joint backyard.
Along with her son Zach, Lori Nichols grows sugar snap peas on California's Central Coast. Photo courtesy of 2 Peas In A Pod.
Where do they get their sugar snap peas? From 2 Peas In A Pod, a San Luis Obispo farm that was the first to grow the plant, which is relatively new. Sugar snap peas were only introduced in the 1980s by Dr. Calvin Lamborn, a farming legend who passed away in 2017. "He gave my dad the seeds," says Zach Nichols, who runs 2 Peas In A Pod with his mom, Lori. Because you have to go through numerous flowering sessions and cultivars, a good seed takes roughly 30 years to create, Zach explains.
When the Nichols received the seeds, they had no idea what to do with them. Although sugar snap peas are finicky — you have to grow them at the right time of year, the weather can't be too hot or too cold, you can't overwater them — they eventually figured it out. In fact, they grew so many, they didn't know what to do with them. That's how they ended up selling at farmers markets. To convince customers, Lori would dip sugar snap peas in a plate of ranch dressing and hand them out. It worked.
Zach Nichols of 2 Peas In A Pod shows off the farm's sugar snap peas. Photo courtesy of 2 Peas In A Pod.
This year, 2 Peas In A Pod survived pouring rain and 80 mph winds, which made their sugar peas look a little less perfect than usual. "It's a gamble to plant sugar snap peas early," Nichols says. "Luckily, we don't really go for looks, we go for flavor. We have had them on the table for the past two months. But even if they look ugly, the flavor is still there." In the next few weeks, expect their sugar snap peas to start looking prettier.
You'll find 2 Peas In A Pod at both the Wednesday Santa Monica Farmers Market and the Sunday Hollywood Farmers Market.