Several varietals of Far West Fungi mushrooms

On Sunday, I participated in the CUESA Coastal Harvest Farm Tour -- a tour of Far West Fungi Farm and Yerena Farms in Moss Landing.

Walking on to the Far West Fungi farm was like no other farm I'd other seen. It can as aptly be described as a laboratory as a farm. Forget all images of fields of mushrooms growing as far as the eye can see: these mushrooms are grown in low warehouses and all production takes place inside buildings.

John and Toby Garrone, the farmers at Far West Fungi, grow hardwood mushrooms on their farm. These are mushrooms that naturally grow on trees or stumps: shiitake, several types of oyster, king trumpet, maitake and lion's head.

Toby Garrone shows the inoculation process

To grow a hardwood mushroom, the farmer must create a food source. Unlike fruits and vegetables, fungi do not use photosynthesis to grow. So, instead of getting their food source from the sun, the mushrooms take nutrients from the tree stump on which they are growing.

Much of the initial inoculation and start-up process of the mushroom cycle involves re-creating a tree stump-like environment for the mushroom. At Far West Fungi, this is done with a combination of sawdust, rice bran hulls, oyster shells, and water. John Garrone told us that commercial mushroom growing often takes part around an area that produces by-products like wood chips because so much of the mushroom process can use these waste products.

The mixture is put into special plastic bag ("One of the most expensive parts of the process," says Toby Garrone), is sterilized, inoculated with mushroom spores in a clean room, and is watched for proper mycelium growth before being taken to incubation rooms.

Incubation room, John Garrone, and clean room

As I mentioned at the outset of this post, a lot of this process reminds me of a laboratory. Temperatures and air flow are constantly being monitored. Strains of mushrooms are cultivated in petri dishes. And the initial growing process takes place in a clean room where workers must strip down and don sterile suits in order to keep unwanted bacteria spores from entering the process.

Once the mushrooms enter the incubation stage, they are separated into their different varietals. Shiitake have the longest incubation period on the farm at 90 days.

Growing rooms

After incubating, the mushrooms enter the growing stage. At this point, the shiitake mushrooms are taken out of the bag altogether, while the maitake and oyster mushroom bags are fashioned with a collar which will direct the growth into a cluster, keep moisture in and allow in oxygen.

Unlike button mushrooms which grow in complete darkness, the hardwood mushrooms that we saw incubate and grow in dimly lighted rooms. Water sprays go off at regular intervals to keep the room humid and moist.

From start to finish, the entire process of bringing a mushroom to table takes anywhere from three to five months, dependent on the type of mushroom and the growing conditions. A fascinating process that I would encourage you to see if you ever have the opportunity.

In addition to the Ferry Plaza Farmers' Market, Far West Fungi also sells at the Palo Alto, Alemany, Civic Center, and Mountain View farmers' markets.

Yerena Farms

After a great, mushroom laden lunch at the Far West Fungi farm, we set out for Yerena Farms, a farm that you may know from the Ferry Plaza Farmers' market as one of the outstanding organic berry vendors. We were taken on a tour of the 19-acre farm by Polli Yerena, a quick-to-laugh and hard-working farmer. Yerena has been farming for over 30 years. He employs four full-time workers to farm the land, and much of the rest of the work is done by family members. We walked through the fields and greedily tasted many different types of berries.

Visiting the farms through CUESA gives me such a greater understanding of where my food is coming from. And visitng with a large group is very efficient for the busy farmers -- instead of giving us all individual farm tours, they can spend a dedicated amount of time educating many visitors instead of a few at a time. I am constantly amazed during farm tours like this about how willing the farmers are to disclose many different parts of their business in the name of education. It's a great way to get to know our Bay Area farming community.

This summer, CUESA is conducting two additional farm tours:

Valley Orchard Farm Tour
Sunday, August 26
Tour Lagier Ranches, our local almond producer, and Hidden Star Orchard in Linden.

Milk and Honey Farm Tour (SOLD OUT)
Sunday, September 16
A tour of Spring Hill Cheese in Petaluma and Marshall's Farm Honey

Both tours are $25 each and include lunch made with farmers' market ingredients.

Well. It's been quite a week for the folks that love and hate the Ferry Building Farmers' Market. First, there was the revelation that a new book by Carlo Petrini (the founder of the Slow Food movement) was downright rude about the farmers and their customers, who work, shop, and food-stroll their Bay Area Saturdays away.

Then there was the CUESA follow-up meeting that attempted to get stuff hashed out between the offender and the offended.

This was followed by blog reaction all over the Bay Area and possibly the country. And finally, yesterday came some signs that maybe Alice Waters was Jimmy Cartering her way through the ugly muck and hurt feelings; possibly composting what was said and using it to feed new growth. Mum until just recently, Alice Waters was reported in the San Francisco Chronicle on Wednesday as weighing in with her opinion on the whole nasty mess.

"I don't think he was wrong about his perception that food is more expensive (at Ferry Plaza)," Waters told Scoop on Monday. "But I think he's wrong in his analysis of why it was."

The cost of raising good, fresh food and hauling it to market in the city "is something that's important for all of us to talk about," Waters says. And while she wishes Petrini hadn't written what he did, she supports him 100 percent.

The Chronicle notes that Petrini had apologized in what they term a "politician's type of apology" by saying he was sorry "for any offense caused by this passage." Which, I have to agree with the Chronicle, is sort of like that old wheeze, "I'm sorry you feel that way," which definitely removes the offender from acknowledging any blame whatsoever. As to the poor surfer-farmer that Petrini "outed" as specifically gouging customers just to support his surf habit?

Petrini insists he meant to give a "positive impression." He blamed his writing, and the translation, for distorting his efforts to illustrate the complexities of slow food in a fast world.

So...maybe what Petrini needed was a better editor? Interesting defense.

So far, I haven't subjected anyone to my own opinion about the kerfuffle. For one, there are plenty of opinions to go around and I'd just be adding to the noise, but for another, my opinion isn't really incendiary or original.

I frankly adore the Ferry Building Farmers' Market. Back in Boston, we didn't really have an equal to it. I mean, there was the one in Haymarket, but it smelled so much of rotting fish the one time I passed by that I never really wanted to go back.

However, the FBFM is so...pretty. Even in dank and drizzly weather -- my favorite time to shop there, actually -- it's just painfully beautiful to amble by the delicious, nourishing sculptures gently coaxed out of the simple dirt. The visions of bright tassels of radishes, the soft green piles of lettuces, shiny unblemished peppers, peaches that make you feel warm all over just by touching them. Even if I never pull out any money, I just feel at peace gazing at so much earthly beauty as the water laps the pylons. It's my art museum, and I can't get over it. I hope I never get over it. But maybe I'm naive or satisfied by simple things. After all, I still hunt for four-leaf clovers and hold buttercups under my husband's chin to see if he likes butter. (He does.)

Is the Ferry Building Farmers' Market expensive? Well, yeah, but so are Jimmy Choo shoes and Hummers and diamonds and memberships to Slow Food. It just happens to be where I choose to spend my money. Would it be nice if prices were lowered? Duh. Of course it would, but until I completely understand how much it costs to coax a small, organic farm to produce, transport, and sell the lovelies I put on my plate, I don't feel qualified to complain about it.

In fact, I've always been chuffed by the fact that my knowledgeable mother-in-law -- who can keep a vast number of figures in her head -- looks at the prices at our farmers' market and pronounces them to be competitive with what she pays at her farmers' market in Washington, D.C.

As other people have pointed out, if the Ferry Building Farmers' Market prices are so repugnant to people, there are so many other places to get good produce: Alemany, San Francisco's Civic Center, Marin -- and that's just the few I know about.

It just doesn't seem like the most productive plan of action to attack and tear down farmers and shoppers, call them names, assume motives and wallet size, and backbite.

I know what the real problem is here: we're all just crabby because the summer tomatoes haven't quite come in yet.