I’m looking forward to the CUESA-hosted Farmers Market Cocktail Demonstration and tasting that will be held on Wednesday, May 14 at the Ferry Building in participation with San Francisco Cocktail Week.

The Farmers Market Cocktail Demonstration will feature cocktails using seasonal farmers market ingredients and will have a star line-up of great bartenders from around the city:

• Joel Baker, Bourbon and Branch
• Steve Liles, Boulevard
• Josh Harris, Pier 23 and Elixir
• Josephine Packard, Alembic
• Greg Lindgren & Jon Gasparini, Rye
• Reza Esmaili, Conduit Yerba Buena
• Carlos Yturria, Grand Pu Bah
• Jon Santer, San Francisco chapter of the US Bartenders’ Guild
• Erick Castro, Sacramento chapter of the US Bartenders’ Guild
• Victoria Damato, Bar Johnny

There will be 12 demonstrated drinks available to taste, and tickets include two drink tickets for signature cocktails.

Tickets are $15 and you can purchase them through Brown Paper Tickets.

Two weeks ago, I mentioned the rising cost of food around the world. It’s been a hot topic lately, and reports are becoming more grim. Costs are starting to hit home in our supermarkets, and warehouse retail chains are even beginning to restrict volume (20 pound) rice sales due to supply issues.

Most sustainable food activists believe that the price of food does not reflect its true price, and that subsidies for crops like corn and soy create artificial prices that keep the price of junk foods and processed foods artificially low. This means unsubsidized, whole foods like farmers market products are more expensive but that they are actually the real price of food.

In an article in the New York Times recently called “Some Good News on Food Prices,” Michael Pollan and Alice Waters made the argument that rising food prices will equalize the playing field that is our food system — organic, local, pasture-raised foods will become feasible options when all food prices are high. “Higher food prices level the playing field for sustainble food that doesn’t rely on fossil fuels,” said Pollan in the article.

As most know, I am an active voice for voting with your fork and making conscious decisions about where your food dollars go.

However, I have trouble with this argument. And I especially have trouble with Waters’ claim that food budgeting in this current climate is simply a matter of reprioritizing:

“It is simply a matter of quality versus quantity and encouraging healthier, more satisfying choices. ‘Make a sacrifice on the cellphone or the third pair of Nike shoes,’ she said.”

While many of us are privileged to be able to make that budget decision or reprioritize, we, in the sustainable food movement, are only alienating those who cannot make those choices with statements such as Waters’. Many are having to make very difficult decisions about their food budgets at the moment, and now may not be the time to make them feel guilty about the decisions that they are facing.

I’m not the only one who was rankled by this article. Tom Philpott, in an article at Grist, called the Pollan and Waters argument an oversimplification.

“I have a hard time imagining people who are struggling to put food on the table rambling off to the farmers’ market on Saturday to fill cloth bags with the sort of fresh, local, organic produce so beloved by Pollan and Waters (and me). Indeed, higher food prices are likely to send many time- and cash-strapped people in quite the opposite direction.”

I agree with Philpott. Now is the time for sustainable food activists to make sure that there is great access to farmers market, great promotion of CSA’s, and to continue to talk about sustainably sourcing our food. But it’s not the time to bask in the fact that our nation’s food prices are reaching crisis levels.

Ever since I visited Hidden Villa, I’ve been thinking of CSAs (Community Supported Agriculture). CSAs are programs where subscribers can receive a weekly box or basket of seasonal produce in exchange for either a share in a farm (usually paid upfront at the start of a season) or a weekly or monthly payment. These programs promote people building a relationship with a local farm so they can better understand where their food comes from and how it’s produced, while also getting the benefits of eating locally, seasonally, and organically. The box is pre-chosen by the farm and represents the most seasonally ripe produce of the week. You cannot choose what goes in it.

When we adopted a puppy last week, I decided it was time to try purchasing a CSA box. Before this week, I have always tried to visit our local farmers’ market each Saturday. I love wandering through the market, seeing many of the same faces behind the stalls, and picking out what I want from the large selection we are so lucky to have in California. I love smelling the fruits, tasting the lettuces, and being part of the communal shopping effort. The problem was that sometimes I didn’t quite make it there, and with a new puppy, I thought my chances of getting there any time soon were slim.

I chose to use Capay Organic as they offer a large box of fruits and vegetables that suited my needs to feed a family of four. They also deliver directly to homes so I don’t have to go to a pick-up location, which some CSAs require. Although going to a pick-up location is a great way to get to know more about the farm you are supporting, I’ve felt strapped for time lately, so the home drop-off service was a huge selling point for me. Smaller boxes are also available, as are mostly fruit boxes. You can also sign up for anything from weekly to once-a-month deliveries. For a list of local CSAs and the services they provide see Jennifer Maiser’s excellent post previously published on BAB.

So, after a week with my box of veggies and fruits, I’ve come to realize that CSAs and Farmers’ Markets offer different benefits and limitations. Following are three lists summing up my thoughts. These lists are in no way complete and I welcome any additions, disagreements, or thoughts you may have.

Why You Should Use Either a CSA or Buy at the Local Farmers’ Market

1. Small family farms are becoming scarcer each year and federal farm subsidies mostly help only large corporate farmers. I believe strongly in keeping local farms solvent, and being part of a CSA or buying regularly from a farmers’ market seem the best ways to do this.

2. The farming of varied local organic produce helps the local environment. For instance, honey bees are dying in record numbers, most likely because of the use of pesticides, which causes a neurological disorder in the bees, and because of agricultural “monocultures of single crops that create ‘floral deserts’ when not in bloom.” Local organic farms therefore help keep the honey bees (and birds, insects, etc.) happier and healthier.

3. Produce from both Farmers’ Markets and CSAs are grown closer to home, and therefore less oil is used to get them to your table.

4. The fruits and vegetables are freshly picked and organic, with the amazing flavors that only food in peak season can have.

Why Use a CSA?

1. Having a box delivered to your front porch is incredibly convenient.

2. If you pick up your CSA box, you have the opportunity to get to know the people from the farm you are supporting and to be part of a larger food community in your area.

3. The produce is organic, seasonal, and locally produced.

4. Being limited to what the CSA delivers each week forces you to fully accept the idea of cooking with only seasonal produce, which can be fun and help you stretch your cooking repertoire.

5. You are assured of shopping locally each week, regardless of how busy you are or how convenient or inconvenient it is to get to the market.

6. CSAs often include something unique or fun in their weekly box that you might not find or think to buy at a farmer’s market. For instance, last week we got a bag of some of the most delicious salted pistachios I’ve ever had.

7. Many CSAs provide newsletters with recipes to subscribers, which are informative and can help you figure out how to be a better seasonal cook.

8. You are often encouraged to visit the actual farm, which brings you closer to the food you eat and can help you educate your children about what they eat. The farms often also have events that you can participate in throughout the year.

Why Shop at a Farmers’ Market?

1. Many people, like me, want to control the quality of the produce they buy. It’s wonderful to smell a tomato, snap a bean, and taste a piece of lettuce before you purchase it.

2. It’s nice to get to choose the fruits and vegetables you want. Although I appreciate the idea that CSA providers are knowledgeable about what is ripe at any given moment, I don’t like being confined to whatever is in season only at that specific farm. For instance, when my box arrived last Friday without any strawberries or fava beans, I was disappointed. As fava beans and strawberries are in season right now, I really wanted to receive them. And when I saw that subscribers to the “mostly fruit” box got strawberries, but that my fruit and veggie box didn’t, I was a little dissatisfied.

3. The farmers’ market is a great place to get my children excited about healthy food. Our trip always starts with a visit to the bounce house, which makes them excited to go there in the first place. After they take a few turns on the bouncy, they are then in great moods and primed to pick out our vegetables for the week, which in turn makes them excited to eat those vegetables later. I also like teaching them that they are part of a larger food community, and going to the farmer’s market helps them experience that community in person.

4. Going to the farmers’ market is a fun event. Mine always has wonderful smells permeating the air, music from local performers, people of every type wandering around, and samples of produce that are perfectly in season to taste. You can feel more connected with the food you purchase and eat by getting to know the local vendors (who are often farmers). It is closer to how people have shopped for millennia than any grocery store you could ever walk into.

5. My farmers’ market has non-produce vendors that I like to patronize. I often get my beef from the Prather Ranch stand, some cheese from the local cheese ladies, and sometimes fresh fish from the fish stand in addition to my produce. There are also cooked food stands and a small flower mart.

6. Sometimes I need more of a specific vegetable than is provided in a CSA box. For instance, if chard bunches are smaller one week, I can choose to buy two to suit the needs of my family table. If I want to bake a large blueberry tart, I can purchase two pints instead of one.

One nice way to get the benefits of both a CSA and your local farmers’ market is to simply do both. You can often purchase a smaller weekly box from a CSA, or get one only once or twice a month and then supplement from your local farmers’ market. I plan on doing this myself.

Btw: Interestingly, I see that there is currently a discussion about Farmers’ Markets vs CSA on Chowhound.

The return of fava beans, the dinosaur-looking, rather ugly shelling bean, to the market is a sure sign of spring. Fava bean season is ridiculously short, and during fava bean season you will find me in front of the television doing the tedious work to clean the beans as often as I can. Unlike some who find the work to prepare them to not be worth it, I personally find the nutty, sweet, unique flavor of a fresh fava bean to be worth every moment of work.

Favas come in a rather large pod from which they must be released. Once pulled from the outer pod, each bean has an inner pod that is usually peeled off as well (some recipes call for some of the shells to stay on for the bitterness that they impart). Most people remove the inner pod with a quick blanch — 30 to 60 seconds in boiling water and then dropped into ice water — however I find it nearly as easy to peel the pods raw with my hand or a small knife. I started this method after reading the Zuni Cafe Cookbook, in which Judy Rodgers tells us that the quick blanch changes the texture of the fava bean.

While I am not sure of the exact yield of the fava bean, casual observation finds the yield to be about 1/2 cup of edible beans per pound.

Fava beans do really well when little is done to adulterate the flavor. “The less you do tho them, the more beautiful they are,” says chef Jody Adams. “I feel they are one of those foods that should be treated with almost ritualistic simplicity.” Favas can be eaten raw in a salad, sauteed, added to a risotto, pureed, or put into soup among other things. The photo you see above is of a side dish I made this weekend — I quickly sauteed the peeled favas in olive oil (only 2-3 minutes), added salt, tossed with mint, and then added pecorino romano once the dish had cooled a bit. It was addictively good, and a great addition to an already full table of spring treats.

Favas will soon be widely available at the markets — I bought my first this weekend from the Star Route Farms booth at the Marin Civic Center market.

If you’ve never had fava beans, please heed this warning (taken from Vegetables from Amaranth to Zucchini): “Fava beans should be avoided by anyone taking antidepressents of the MAO-inhibitor type. In addition, the beans can cause sever anemia in a small number of people of Mediterranean origin (and some Africans, Arabs and Asians) who suffer from glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase deficiency, an inherited imbalance. One hopes they know who they are before they sit down to your table.”

Need more ideas for fava beans?
The Food Section has grilled fava beans.
Lucullian delights has raw fava beans with pecorino.
Exploring the Silver Spoon tells us about fresh fava bean puree.

A sure sign of spring at local farmers markets is the appearance of green garlic. It arrives in late winter, but it is a sign of what’s to come: spring meals resplendent with fresh green peas, spring lamb, mushrooms, radishes and asparagus.

Hard garlic bulbs come into season in June and July. At that point, the bulbs are dry and look like what we typically use the rest of the year (they are stored in dry, ventilated rooms by the farmers). But to get to that point, garlic begins much earlier in the year as a green stalk that is similar in appearance to a leek or a spring onion. As the year goes on, the end portion becomes more bulbous until it starts to harden and dry out.

While green garlic can be used in any recipe calling for garlic, it has a subtle flavor that is unique from dry garlic. When I particularly want to highlight the flavor of green garlic, I make egg dishes, risottos, or simple meat dishes with gads of the herb.

Fellow bloggers also enjoy green garlic and have published recipes:

• Pim suggests shrimp stir-fry with green garlic
• Brett likes his green garlic in a Spanish tortilla with white beans
• Catherine has a cabbage and green garlic soup recipe for us
• And Laura Rebecca brings us a green garlic pesto

You can find green garlic at most local farmers markets. I have never seen green garlic in a traditional supermarket. Farms I know that carry green garlic include:

Eatwell Farm (Ferry Plaza Farmers Market)
Knoll Farm (Ferry Plaza Farmers Market)
Marin Roots Farm (Ferry Plaza, Marin Farmers Markets)
Phan Farm (Heart of the City Farmers Market)

Wanna know how cold it was. Too frigid for apples. One farmer stood in the cold; when a hearty customer arrived, she would bang on the truck door. Her partner, with the better end of the deal, would pass along a bag from the stash. Cold.
- “Vital Information”, regarding an Ann Arbor, MI farmers market in January.

I am constantly humbled by how fortunate we are to live in the Bay Area foodshed. Here it is the middle of winter, and we have many farmers markets to choose from and can still come home from the market with our bags laden with fruits and vegetables.

“Please find me just one avocado,” I have been begging Will Brokaw every time I see him. “Sorry, not for a few weeks,” he tells me sadly. I have been craving avocados and the winter hiatus in the avocado season seems longer than ever this year. But two weeks ago, after eating a sub-par, underripe (”watery fat” a friend of mine called them at this stage) avocado, I thanked Will for holding out and not putting out avocados before they’re ready. It will be a while longer for Will’s avocados, but he is offering us a new crop of delicious kumquats in the meantime.

Steve from Rancho Gordo had a new offering for us this week: dried Chiles de Arbol. I’m looking forward to making something fun with these super spicy delights. While a few are being reserved for a pickled lime recipe that I’m in the process of making, I think I’ll try out this recipe from Orangette for the bulk of them.

Have I mentioned Tory Farms? I first learned of Tory during a June Taylor conserve class, when she mentioned the farm’s stone fruit several times. Tory joined the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market within the past couple of years, and I have been a fan since day one. Their stone fruit is very good in the summer, but right now they are bringing spectacular citrus fruit to the market. Namely, Paige Mandarins and Oro Blanco grapefruits. They are located in the back, right under the Ghandi statue.

Achadinha Cheese Company is a weekly stop for me. Farmer and cheesemaker Donna Pacheco brings goat cheeses to the market from Petaluma. I’ve been buying the feta cheese lately — it’s cured in a sea salt brine and a great addition to my weekly salads and pastas. A hint: if you can think of it, bring a jar for the feta cheese. Donna is happy to give it to you in a ziploc, but I find that my cheese arrives home more safely when it’s in a jar.

Overall, it’s a great time to get to the Ferry Plaza Farmers’ Market. The CUESA newsletter says that we can look forward to spring vegetables this month including asparagus, spring garlic and cippolini onions.

I’ve always wondered why street food was not as popular in the US. And then I started trying to understand health codes, land use policy, business permits, tax laws, risk management briefs, and sidewalk obstruction ordinances. I soon lost my appetite. The confusion was enough to make me give up on ever enjoying hot rice cakes while sitting on a plastic stool leaned up against a park wall or discovering the best roasted yams ever at the entrance to a post office.

Farmers’ markets also face similar difficulties in getting started. While some neighbors relish the thought of fresh mesclun within walking distance, others fear backed-up traffic, loss of what little parking they already have, trash littering their yards, and rodents gathering for weekly food fests. Public parks, natural places for impromptu booths, end up having conflicts in mission and charter with profitable enterprise. Market management, like any other business or nonprofit, has its own risks and rewards and crazy ways of doing things. And finally, farmers have enough to keep them busy in their fields without having to face a long drive into the city. Not many can make a living for their families by standing around selling a few carrots here or some organic apples there, while their thin profit margins preclude hiring retail staff.

In many other countries, people figure out how to make use of every bit of space, material and time. While I understand the need for protecting the public, I’d love to see us loosen up just a little bit and support more micro-businesses, more diversity in the food market, and more openness and curiosity in place of fear and nimbyness.

A couple of months ago, my next-door neighbor decided that he didn’t like the shape of my waist-high rosemary bush, the one I tended in that tiny patch of soil cut into the sidewalk in front of my building. So, without asking me, he cut it down to a stub of three inches and then poured so-called river stones over the space. A few weeks later, “someone” planted a begonia where my rosemary bush used to be. Not even a scented begonia, thank you very much. When pressed, my neighbor mentioned words like “property value” and “attractive landscaping.” He’s a new home-owner; I’m one of the last renters still toughing it out on my block. A sprawling, eight-year-old rosemary bush apparently does not have a place in my changing neighborhood.

Fortunately, another old neighbor realized how sad I was and planted a small, three-sprigged sprout of a baby rosemary plant next to the useless begonia. I look forward to watching it grow, and I hope that we both–my rugged herb and I–will still have a place to flourish on this shined-up street.

And about that video above: be sure to watch to the very end to see the magic happen.

Heart of the City Farmers Market located in the Civic Center.

In 2006, I reported here about the Heart of the City Farmers Market, the oldest farmers market in San Francisco. Heart of the City has been in existence for 26 years, and is held each Wednesday from 7:00 am to 5:30 pm and each Sunday from 7:00 am to 5:00 pm. Even the hours of the market give you the clue that this is not the normal market that we have in the city — most other markets run for half days or a few hours each week.

There are several reasons to specifically attend the Heart of the City Farmers Market, which I remembered when attending both the Wednesday and the Sunday markets last week.

1) It’s a bargain. At Heart of the City, you can expect to leave with bags of produce spending very little money. The market location is a low-income area, and fruits and vegetables are priced to attract the neighbors. As a result, you will find very little organic produce, but you will find great produce from hard-working, local farmers.

Green garlic available in abundance this week.

2) Phan Farms. This is a farm that grows Asian produce in Sacramento. Recently, a friend mentioned that we have local dragon fruit available to us. I somewhat incredulously asked her what farmer was growing it, as it’s pretty unusual in our part of the world. When she told me Phan Farm, I wrote, “Thanks - I should have known. When in doubt, the answer is always Phan Farms.” Phan is the place you go when you need specialty Asian fruits and vegetables, or just to see produce that usually can’t be found at local farmers markets. This week, I picked up some young ginger from them. Phan Farms attends the Heart of the City Market on Wednesdays and Sundays.

Rare bergamot lemons from De Santis Farm.

3) De Santis Farm. This is a farm out of the Central Valley that grows many different varieties of citrus. Over the course of a year, I buy green walnuts, Buddha’s hand, pomelos, delicious Satsuma mandarins, and any variety of specialty citrus from this farming family. Last week, De Santis had bergamot lemons. They set me back a whopping $9 for two, but it was fun to try out this unusual fruit. De Santis attends the market on Wednesdays only.

4) Waffle Mania. There is quite a stir happening on the Internet about a waffle maker who drives his truck into local farmers markets and serves up delicious Belgian waffles. When I tasted the waffles, it took me back to the same delectable that I’d eaten walking around the streets of Europe many years ago. The only time you can have these waffles in San Francisco proper is Wednesday mornings at the Heart of the City Market.

If you are a farmers market shopper, I can’t recommend this market enthusiastically enough. It’s a part of San Francisco’s history, is a vibrant market full of a representative cross-section of San Franciscans, and an enjoyable place to shop.

Heart of the City Farmers Market
Market Street
(between Seventh and Eighth streets)
(415) 558-9455
Wednesdays, 7:00 am - 5:30 pm
Sundays, 7:00 am - 5:00 pm

The Saturday Ferry Plaza Farmers’ Market has a new vendor that I am very excited about. Marin Roots Farm is one of my favorite farm booths whenever I attend the San Rafael Civic Center market and I was really pleased to see them show up at the FPFM a few weeks ago. “How long have you been here?” I asked the farmer, Jesse Kuhn, thinking that I’d been missing them for weeks. “About 6 hours,” he replied.

The Marin Roots Farm booth is a thing of beauty. The farm specializes in lettuces, leafy greens and root vegetables. It’s typical to find many varieties of lettuces and there is no other booth in the market where I have to ask “what’s this?” as often as at Marin Roots Farm. Which is a good thing — it’s fun to take home a bag of new greens to try. Because of Marin Roots Farm, I have started to use chickweed, a nutty green that I often toss into a dish raw or put on a sandwich, and ancho cress, a spicy green that can be eaten raw.

Marin Roots Farm is a 10-acre certified organic farm west of Petaluma. The farmer, Jesse Kuhn, leases a piece of land on a 250-acre dairy farm. His farm is located between several large farming operations — backs up to a 1100-acre cattle ranch. Marin Roots Farm is a relatively young farm, as it’s been in existence for four years. Kuhn didn’t have to put the farm through a transitional phase (required when transitioning conventionally-worked land to organic) which can take up to three years. Because the land before Kuhn arrived was pretty pristine, and it was allowed to move through organic certification quickly.

Kuhn knew that he was interested in farming and went to school for it and spent some time working on other farms. He leased the Petaluma property because of the size, the quality of the land, and its proximity to a good water source. The hardest part about starting up the farm, he said, was the unknown of giving up his full-time landscaping job and leaping to a job without guaranteed income. Fortunately, a USDA loan came through “just when I needed it most.” He currently has 5 people working with him in the field, and a couple of people working at farmers’ markets.

Kuhn has just leased an additional piece of land near Tomales, and is growing garlic, shallots and onion to begin with.

Kuhn is excited to be at the Ferry Plaza Market and said that it was “instantly our best market.” Aside from finding Marin Roots products at the farmers’ market, you can also eat their vegetables around the city at restaurants including Foreign Cinema, Market Bar, 1550 Hyde, Zuni Cafe, and Greens.

You can find the Marin Roots Farm booth in the front portion of the Ferry Building, on the south side near the (secret) Blue Bottle Coffee booth that is located in the arcade.

It’s that time of the year again. Shorter days, colder nights and the realization that yet another year is slipping away.

For those of us who clutch to whatever hope we can find, it’s also the time to begin thinking about all the promises ahead for 2008. To help mark the months, calendars that inspire and move me are a basic necessity. How else to make the wall over my desk a place for change rather then an endless list of tasks?

For the third year in a row, I’m ordering a copy of Celia Roberts’ wonderful calendar celebrating farm workers across the country. Fully bilingual with Spanish and English text, this year’s calendar, Gracias por los Campesinos, describes the daily labor of immigrants with honesty, respect and quiet gratitude.

Next year’s calendar is especially close to my heart, for Celia came to the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market while I was still teaching in the kitchen there. She helped me welcome the women from Las Salsitas the day they demonstrated recipes from their cookbook, and while she was there, she snapped a photo of Carl Rosato from Woodleaf Farm. If you flip to December in the 2008 calendar, you’ll see him helping some customers as they pick out peaches at his booth.

Every year’s calendar has a different visual theme, but the feeling is always the same: thanking community members for their valuable contributions. One of my favorites was last year’s collection of photographs, Gracias por los Abuelos, when Celia honored grandparents.

I highly recommend this year’s calendar for offices or kitchens where eating and cooking has become the mere stuff of work. It’s a warm reminder of the faces and lives and stories that bring us our food.