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.

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.

When two longtime friends decided to come to San Francisco for the weekend, the first thing I did was plan our meals. I had approximately a day and a half with them, and I wanted their food experiences to be memorable. I had an added benefit of knowing my audience very well and being able to customize the trip to their taste.

When I first heard they were coming, I made back-up dinner reservations at A16 and The Slanted Door. In the end, however, I ended up scrapping both of those reservations (and calling to cancel!) a few days before my friends came. The weekend came together very nicely and we went to the following places:

SPQR. My love for this new restaurant has already been documented, and I've been back three times since that initial report. This trip was fun, as I got to watch Anna as she tasted beets with ricotta, chanterelles and sunchokes, and the panino dessert -- which was groan-causingly good.

The Alembic. After dinner, we cabbed it over to The Alembic so that Anna could share in my love of this wonderful bar. I've been talking up the emphasis on amazing mixology that has been happening in San Francisco, and the Alembic is the perfect example of this. My fellow bloggers agree -- the Alembic is a destination bar.

Saturday morning, Amanda arrived and it was off to ... where else?

The Ferry Plaza Farmers' Market. A must stop for any visitor staying at my house. When we were through, we met up with a couple friends for wine. The Ferry Plaza Wine Merchant was busy, so we lounged in the Slanted Bar lounge very comfortably for a couple of hours. On Saturday afternoons, there is not table service in the lounge until 2 pm (though you can eat at the bar). No bother, we ordered bottles of wine at the bar and by the time table service arrived, we ordered some delicious SD snacks. My friends had a good time wandering the Ferry Building afterward. Anna bought a lot of cheese to take home with the help of our favorite cheese expert.

Then it was home to rest before heading off ...

To Bodega Bistro. This was the dinner originally planned as The Slanted Door. But the girls were insistent that they wanted to experience San Francisco the way that I usually live it. And the truth is that you are much more apt to find me at Bodega Bistro than The Slanted Door. Bodega is known for some of the best Vietnamese food in the city, and the Cha Ca Hanoi there -- a dish of fish with dill and spices and peanuts -- is more to my taste than the Cha Ca Hanoi that I ate in the most famous place in Hanoi.

Happily, the Bodega Bistro dinner went over very well and we went home full and sated. The weekend was a great mix of different bites, tastes and meals and both Anna and Amanda are talking about the trip weeks later.

Last month, Catherine posted her recommendation list for visitors which I will likely refer to in the future. And a while back, Michael posted his visitor list.