Tomato pickers in Immokalee, Florida. Photo: Scott Robertson

As the nation's annual food fest approaches, let's take a moment to express gratitude for farmworkers, the hard-working field hands who grow and harvest the abundance we're about to eat on Thanksgiving.

It's so easy in the food-obsessed Bay Area to focus on whether our D.I.Y., made-from-scratch meals are perfect or if the raw ingredients of our culinary creations have a pristine pedigree.

But enough food narcissism already: let's talk about the plight of the people who make this holiday possible.

Some food for thought:
• Check out the videos from the recent conference TedxFruitvale: Harvesting Change hosted by the foundation wing of the sustainable-food focused Bon Appétit Management Company (BAMCO). The event, held at Mills College in Oakland, revealed in sharp relief and from first-hand accounts the back-breaking labor of those in the fields, many of whom are still exposed to life-threatening pesticides and labor in shocking conditions. But this day-long event was anything but a downer: The program also highlighted farmworker success stories and alternative ownership models to BigAg.

  The well-curated program (hat tip to BAMCO's Maisie Greenawalt, Bonnie Powell, Haven Bourque and crew) featured a diverse group of speakers that went well beyond the usual suspects who typically wax on at such meet ups -- along with great food, good music, and an inclusive vibe. There were breast-feeding activists and Spanish-speaking farmhands and everyone found a place on the stage and at the table.

  Recurring themes from the day: Hard work, determination in the face of adversity, and the importance of family ties, which seems fitting to mention in a Thanksgiving post. Local organic farmers' market regular Maria Catalán, one of the first Latina farm owners in the country, talked about giving back to her community and the pleasures of working with her children, as did Napa grape grower and wine maker Amelia Ceja.

  Adelfo Antonio of Swanton Berry Farm recounted the benefits of working on a unionized organic farm (one with panoramic ocean views, no less). Former farmworker, José Gutierrez, who once toiled alongside his father in the fields now studies agromedicine, so that workers like his dad can have a healthier life. Reporter Roberto Romano simply let his film La Cosecha/The Harvest, which chronicles the plight of three teenage migrant workers, speak for itself.

• Stay tuned for the pending posting of the Edible Education 101 lecture that included Fast Food Nation author Eric Schlosser. Not one to mince words, Schlosser says simply that racism is at the heart of the long history of exploitation and abuse that characterizes farmworkers' struggles. He urges us all to stop being consumers, start being citizens, and take some personal responsibility for what we eat.

  Also speaking that evening, the man Schlosser refers to as the next Cesar Chavez, Lucas Benitez, co-founder of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW), an organized group of tomato pickers from Florida who have made great strides in improving simply horrendous living and working conditions for produce pickers. (A detailed account of the squalor, abuse, and danger these workers encounter can be found in Tomatoland by Barry Estabrook, who first brought national attention to this issue in a James Beard award-winning story for the late Gourmet magazine.)

  In the past decade, the CIW's widely cited Campaign For Fair Food has forced major fast food restaurants, food service companies, and tomato growers to agree to a pay increase for workers and a code of conduct that recognizes workers' rights. (Still to come to the table: grocery store chains such as Kroger, Publix, Walmart, and Trader Joe's, see below.) The Oakland-based Just Harvest USA is a CIW partner and works on fair food campaigns close to home.

• Take action: Get to know your local farmers. Visit your favorite farms (a green tour guide has been amazed to discover how many people -- Bay Area residents no less -- have never set foot on a farm.)

  Even heavy hitters like farmer friend Alice Waters, who herself had a recent epiphany about the plight of farmworkers, are showing support for farmworkers' struggles. Waters sent snacks from Chez Panisse to feed protesters at the recent Trader Joe's rally (covered on Bay Area Bites).


Protest march to Trader Joe's for farmworker justice in Oakland. Photo: Wendy Goodfriend

• Try farming: Got what it takes to harvest in the heat under difficult conditions for low pay and no benefits? The United Farm Workers invites American citizens who think immigrant and undocumented farm workers are stealing all the good jobs to sign up for field work as part of their Take Our Jobs campaign, which caught the attention of The Colbert Report, among others, last year.

Have ideas about how to stay connected to farmworkers and their concerns? Bring 'em on below.

Oh, and Happy Thanksgiving.

Saturday morning, market day, is a jumble of visiting with friends, purchasing food for the week, jostling with tourists, and talking to farmers. There are some weekends when the amount of energy needed for the market -- including lugging my goods home on the bus -- takes its toll. While on wintry days the market almost feels like a whisper, on summer days the market shouts at the top of its lungs for hours on end. Summer food is amplified, summer crowds are amplified, and even the number of farm booths is amplified.

Most of the local, hard-core market goers that I know won't be seen at the market after 9am on a summer Saturday morning. I tend to gamble with that rule some weeks. Sometimes it's more important to sleep in than to be the first at the market, and sometimes I have market obligations that require me to be there later. And then, all you can do is just go with the flow and be as patient as possible.

This weekend, I was at the market late. I had interviewed Ed George of the Peach Farm for CUESA's Meet the Producer series at 10.30, and wasn't at the market early enough to shop before the interview. That meant that I was still shopping close to noon. Interviewing Ed was fun -- he's a really dedicated farmer who provides produce to some of the city's best restaurants. His major crop is heirloom tomatoes, and they were beautiful on Sunday. I picked up some very small eggplants from him that I still haven't decided how to prepare.

Even at the height of the market, farmers are usually in a good mood and talkative. I purchased fresh garbanzo beans, off the stalk, from one of the Catalan daughters at Catalan Farm. I asked her if she was the one who had to de-stalk them. It's a tedious process without much yield to show for your trouble. "No, and it's a good thing," she said. "I would just throw them at my brother. We get in fights with them."

If you blink, you'll miss Short Night Farm. They are a small booth in the front of the market, and they usually only have a small amount of produce on their table. Short Night has never disappointed me and I look forward to their produce every week, so I stopped to see what they had: beautiful melons that I didn't want to carry around the market. Deciding to take the gamble that there would be some left at the end of my trip, I passed them up. "But I'll take these," I told the vendor, grabbing some lemons. She laughed that the lemons were important enough to carry but the melon wasn't. It was no joke to me -- finding locally grown citrus in July is difficult, and they were the only vendor at the market selling lemons that day.

The Hunter Orchards farmers were in the back of the market, selling lavender and dried garlic. They are a vendor that we only see for about a month a year, when they bring their beautiful Rocambole garlic to the market. The garlic that I bought on Saturday will last until Valentine's Day, they said. I bid them good-bye until next year, and strategized a cool,dark place for my two bags of newly purchased dried garlic.

By the time I ran into a couple of bloggers, I had visions of going home for a post-market meal. "The tostadas at Primavera are really good today," Tea mentioned referring to the amazing Mexican food stand at the back of the market. "I'm going to skip it", I said. "I'm plotting a BLT." BLT's always make me think of Cookie and Cranky, my blogger friends in Marin, and I had them in mind as I ran to pick up bacon, perfect tomatoes, tiny little heads of romaine lettuce, and my BLT bun of choice.

Arriving back home, I unpacked and made my meal within 20 minutes, then sat and watched mindless television as I decompressed from my market day.

Each week when I get home, I scribble down my market list before I put it away. In addition to the produce mentioned above, I also purchased:

Orach, nopales, and cilantro from Heirloom Organics
Pasilla peppers from Catalan Farms Corn from G & S Corn
Nectarines from Blossom Bluff Orchards
Avocados from Brokaw Nursery
Butter from Spring Hill Cheese