The Farmer's Market at the Ferry Building

The weather is the reason I moved to San Francisco. The heirloom tomato is why I stay.
Moving to a new place after having spent all of my life someplace else called for some major changes in lifestyle, one of the biggest being the way I now shop for food and the way I cook it.

I’m blessed to be living within walking distance of the Ferry Building where, every Saturday morning, a happening takes place: the spectacular greenmarket that has become an essential part of my life. Each week, I try to get there in time for the scheduled events, starting usually with a talk by a farmer who has brought his crops to market that day. I look at a bundle of asparagus with a more appreciative eye after hearing about the ongoing research and the dedication that went into growing it. A cooking demonstration by a chef or cookbook author follows, using seasonal produce from the market. After tasting the featured dish, the audience fans out into the stalls to purchase its ingredients.

Overwhelmed when I first came to the market, I have since learned how to navigate its many delights. I’ve identified my favorite vendors, starting with those on the Embarcadero side of the building, where I fill my basket with bouquets of basil selected from a huge mound so impellingly fragrant that it stops traffic each week; glistening red onions; and those miniature heads of red, green, and purple lettuce that are indeed Little Gems, sold by the matriarch of a farming family who scolds me when I forget to bring my bags back for recycling. The market is green in more ways than one.

Walking through the Ferry Building, I pass shops selling exquisite French pastries, Japanese bento boxes, Italian salumi, and artisanal cheeses. I quicken my pace and breathe deeply as I come to the bread bakery, its intoxicating aromas beckoning. I exit on the waterfront side of the building, onto the Promenade facing the Bay and the ferries that shuttle between The City and the picturesque islands of Sausalito and Tiburon. I yearn to board one.

But I’m on a mission. I don’t have time for sightseeing. Accepting samples of Asian pears and pink-tinged apricots enroute, I head directly to the stalls selling my favorite heirloom tomatoes, the reason why, rain or shine, I never miss the Saturday market. Heirloom tomatoes drive my weekly menus, often as a side, sometimes as a main course, always showy, always delicious.

Each variety of heirloom (there are hundreds!) has its own distinct look, taste, and fan club. I am a loyal fan and defender of the homely Cherokee Purple. These deformed beauties, blemished and bumpy, feisty and free-spirited, bulge in any direction they choose to grow. And every bite bursts with flavor.

Two kinds of people come to the Ferry Building market—locals and tourists. It’s easy to tell us apart: locals are the ones carrying baskets spilling over with leafy greens in one hand, bunches of long-stemmed sunflowers in the other, and a still-warm baguette tucked underarm. We are the happiest beasts of burden you will encounter anywhere. Tourists are the ones taking pictures of us.

But tourists and locals alike have one thing in common: we are all devout foodies. Witness the enthusiasm over Brussels sprouts on-the-stalk, the discernment when choosing arugula with the exact degree of spiciness. And the current rage—heirloom beans. From the everyday green variety to Scarlet Runners and Spotted Eye of the Tiger, market regulars are swooning over beans. Who would have guessed that this definitive Depression dish would become the new icon of the food cognoscenti?

We talk to each other, we devotees of the market, friends and strangers alike. I once stood next to a man who was carefully picking knobs of green garlic. He turned out to be a chef who answered my question, “Why green garlic?” with a lengthy discourse on how all garlic is not created equal. Another time, I ask a woman how she will cook the armful of Swiss chard she is buying. Armed with her recipe, I buy some, too, and cook it for my family, who come to my kitchen expecting basic Grandma food and are fed, instead, the organic lean, green bounty I carry home from the market.

My husband, who rarely accompanies me to market, doesn’t understand what it means to me. He comes only when I expect to buy more than I can carry home. On one such occasion, I picked up a head of heart-stoppingly beautiful butter lettuce. If the great Renaissance painters had chosen vegetables instead of fruit for their masterpieces, this head of lettuce would surely have been a contender. Cradling it reverently in two hands, I walked over to my husband and said, “Isn’t this gorgeous!” He looked at me, a puzzled expression on his face, and said, “It’s a head of lettuce.” He doesn’t get it.

But I do. I get it. And I will never take for granted these gifts from farmers who for generations have nurtured the seeds of this dazzling bounty, harvested this morning in the fertile farmlands that ring our city, and gracing my dinner table this evening. Jeff McCormack, seed and pollination expert, says, “The world is a large garden and there is room enough for everybody to cultivate a piece of happiness.” The farmers who feed the Ferry Building greenmarket bring to our community an extraordinary piece of that happiness.