Spend a couple of minutes poking around Google for "the $3 peach" and you will find multiple, tired complaints of the cost of produce at the Ferry Plaza Farmers' Market. At some point, instead of finding new reasons to complain about this nationally renowned farmers' market, a lot of writers began to refer to the cost of some of the peaches at the market.

Echoing my own thoughts, a commenter last year on Michael Bauer's blog wrote, "If I hear one more reference to the $3 peach I will scream."

My issue is not that people are complaining about the market. It's that the complainers don't manage to come up with anything more exciting than an old reference to the cost of a very small percentage of the peaches at the market. I have never spent $3 per peach at the market and I shop there (and buy peaches) as often as I can.

Because this complaint is often a thorn in my side, my ears perked up when I heard that Russ Parsons, writer for the Los Angeles Times and author of How to Read a French Fry, had written a new book, How to Pick a Peach: The Search for Flavor from Farm to Table. Parsons is known for his meticulous examination of a topic once he decides to study it, and in this book he has taken on fruits and vegetables.

Parsons' book gave me answers about why some peaches are more expensive than others, what makes some peaches so satisfying, and taught me about the economics of small farming and the realities of the true cost of a peach.

The book is reference-style and is broken down by section for selected fruits and vegetables. In each section he outlines where the fruit or vegetable is grown, how to choose it, how to store it, how to prepare it, and includes recipes. While he uses peaches as a vehicle for some of the discussion of commercial agriculture, he covers fruits and vegetables from apples to winter squash. The rest of How to Pick a Peach is peppered with discussions of the food industry, the selection of new fruit varietals, and big farming vs. small farming.

Which brings us back to the peach.

Commercial agriculture is most often all about bringing the consumer a good-looking product to the supermarket and small farming is usually about bringing intense flavor from lesser-known varietals to the consumer.

Parsons introduces us to Fitz Kelly and Art Lange, stone fruit growers in the Central Valley who take their fruit to Southern California farmers' markets (Until 2006, Kelly also brought his fruit to the Ferry Plaza Farmer's Market). Whereas most commercial farmers harvest their fruit as soon as it is minimally acceptable to take to market, small farmers push their fruit to stay on the tree until the last possible minute, often gambling entire crops in order to push the flavor a little bit more for the consumers. They pick only the perfect fruit and leave a lot on the tree or on the ground because it's not just right for market.

"The cost of perfection is enormous," writes Parsons. "Whereas the average stone fruit farmer in California harvest about ten tons per acre, Lange and Kelly only pick two or three. This difference in sales volume could never be recouped through normal commercial channels; it is only by direct marketing that growers can get a premium for a great product. Peaches and nectarines at many supermarkets can go for less than $1 a pound, and even good farmers' market fruit might sell for $2 a pound, but stone fruit grown by these two men fetches far higher prices. And people stand in line to buy it. Even at those elevated prices, however, the economics are tough. Multiply an average of $4 a pound by two tons per acre, and you're still barely in the black -- especially when the profit is spread over so few acres."

Reading about the hard work, thought, and even the chance that goes into getting our peaches to market made me want to go and hug my favorite stone fruit farmers: the farmers from Tory Farms, Woodleaf Farm, and Blossom Bluff Orchards.

Most peaches at the Ferry Plaza Farmers' Market do not cost $3 each. But even if they cost $3 or $4 or $5, after reading this book I would bet that you'd find room in your budget for one or two.

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.