Those expecting a brawl got more of a lovefest when Whole Foods CEO John Mackey met with Michael Pollan author of The Omnivore's Dilemma at UC Berkeley last night. The feud, if you can call it that, goes to back to a time shortly after the publication of the book when Mackey took issue with the quality of Pollan's research, his criticism of Whole Foods and what he called "industrial organic". Over the months that passed a series of letters were made public in which each seemed to take the other to task. Those letters can be found here:

Letter 1: Mackey to Pollan
Letter 1 Response: Pollan to Mackey
Letter 2: Mackey to Pollan
Letter 2 Response: Pollan to Mackey

Mackey complained that he wasn't contacted by Pollan before the book was published and tried to argue that all "industrial organic" is not bad. Pollan challenged Mackey on the authenticity of the storytelling present in the store, and on how much produce was truly "local".

The problem is and was, that Pollan and Mackey agree more than they disagree. While Mackey got his chance to explain his philosophy and to announce several new praiseworthy initiatives that deal with fair trade, animal welfare, support for local "food artisans" and loans for farmers and food producers, he admitted that criticism was good, and that it spurred a reexamination of their practices and a rethinking of their approach. Pollan in turn praised Mackey for the new initiatives and for being willing to so thoroughly engage his critics, something few CEO's are willing to do.

It was surprising how unpolished and passionate Mackey was compared to the almost slick and sometimes snide Pollan. Mackey even went so far as to say the backlash against his company and the concept of organic has actually been good in some ways. Still Mackey doesn't like being compared with Wal-Mart, and his philosophy of a more enlightened capitalism and movement towards a post industrial age he calls the "ecological era" puts him on the forefront of progressive businesses.

For his part, Pollan kept the conversation to a discussion more about the future than the present or the past in the discussion part of the program which was entitled "The Past, The Present, The Future of Food". Pollan even envisioned a kiosk in a grocery store that would allow shoppers to scan items and see what was happening back on the farm for a kind of nanny-cam meets corporate transparency, a vision that Mackey seemed to embrace. Perhaps both Mackey and Pollan are ready to put down the gloves and make peace with the past and present (in addition to each other) and to make more room for a focus on the future.

Between my vacation and a work trip to Southern California, my time in the Bay Area lately has been sporadic. The first thing I try and do when I return home to San Francisco is to visit a farmers' market. Farmers' markets ground me. Seeing the fruits and vegetables that are in season reminds where I am in the year, how much time has passed, and how the farmers are doing. The main thing that I took away from this week's trip to the Sunday San Rafael Farmers' Market is that SPRING IS COMING.

Though our produce is still heavily into kale, butternut squash, and root vegetables, the turning of the season has begun. Look hard and you will see tiny little green onions and green garlic. Green garlic looks a little like green onion with a small garlic nub at the end that gradually gets larger and harder as the season goes on. I use green garlic for everything that you'd use garlic for, but you'll learn your own favorite ways to try out this subtle, delicious vegetable.

Asparagus has started to make an appearance, foreshadowing our wonderful asparagus months of March and April. This week, I only saw asparagus at the Zuckerman's Farm booth, but it will soon be available through other vendors as well. Get your risotto recipes ready! If you look hard, you will also start to see glimpses of strawberries at different markets throughout the area.

The young greens throughout the market at the moment are stunning. Just perusing the market on Sunday, I noticed nettles, spring mix, baby chard, baby arugula, rapini and other greens. As we move further along in the year, these greens will be in even more abundance.

I was gone during much of the citrus freeze last month, and expected when I returned that I would not find any citrus products in the market. The opposite is true. While many farmers lost a lot of their crop, citrus is still widely available. According to Julie Cummins, the Director of Education at CUESA, many of the citrus growers were able to pick in advance of the freeze and are now selling their pre-picked fruit. Because the farms who attend our Bay Area markets are fairly small, they were able to mobilize enough workers on very short notice to save a lot of their crop, where the large farms were left with worker shortages and seemed to lose a larger percentage of their crop. This week I could choose from mandarins, pomelos, kumquats, Buddha's hand, blood oranges, and lemons.

Will Brokaw from Brokaw Nursery says that they lost a small percentage of their avocado crop due to this year's weather. Where we'll really notice the lack of avocados, says Brokaw, is next year in the late fall and winter. While we normally could expect Gwen avocados at that time from the nursery's northernmost orchard in Soledad, all those avocados "are toast" and we'll have several months without avocados and will have to wait until January or February 2008 when we can see the Haas avocado crop. Brokaw's guavas and cherimoyas from the Soldedad farm also were harmed, but we can look foward to kumquats, other citrus, and many more months of avocados from Brokaw Nursery.

I was surprised this week to see that Dave Little still has some potatoes from the fall crop. He has a couple weeks more of potatoes to sell, and then will take some time off to plant, returning in the late spring with a new crop. Be sure to check out Dave's cooking demonstration this Saturday at the Ferry Plaza Farmers' Market, where he will demonstrate that even sprouted potatoes are good for cooking and taste delicious.

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Mariquita Farm is a popular vendor at the Saturday Ferry Plaza Farmers' Market. Julia and Andy, the farmers, put out a fantastic newsletter each week with essays by Andy and farm news. Mariquita has taken a big step technologically and Julia and Andy are now publishing a blog: The Ladybug Letter. If you are an RSS-geek like me, then The Ladybug Letter is going to be a worthwhile addition to your feeds.

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The hottest ticket in town tonight is the John Mackey and Michael Pollan event at UC Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism. Those of us who follow food politics watched with interest last summer as The Omnivore's Dilemma kicked off a series of letters between the author, Michael Pollan, and John Mackey -- the CEO of Whole Foods. The event is sold out, but you can watch the live webcast courtesy of UC Berkeley. With the number of bloggers who are planning to attend, you will surely be reading posts about the event this week.

Letter 1: Mackey to Pollan
Letter 1 Response: Pollan to Mackey
Letter 2: Mackey to Pollan
Letter 2 Response: Pollan to Mackey