Taking on Climate Change, One Bite at a Time ~ Tomorrow

National best selling author Anna Lappé is in town! Everyone in the food community is excited to welcome Anna to the Bay Area on her book tour for Diet for a Hot Planet: The Climate Crisis at the End of Your Fork and What You Can Do About It. She'll be speaking at a number events next week; if you see her here, however, you can pair the visit with the convenience, joy and immediate relevance of supporting local farmers! If you plan to be at the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market on Saturday, please come up to the second floor to the Port Commission Hearing Room and join other interested eaters for a riveting talk about the effect of our food choices on the environment. The event is at 11 am and we're requesting a $1-$10 donation to the Small Planet Fund. Learn more or buy advance tickets here (also available at the door).

Macy's Demo with Dan Lehrer ~ Tomorrow

Learn about growing herbs from organic farmer Dan Lehrer of Flatland Flower Farm, and taste how they can enliven meals as Chris L'Hommedieu, Chef de Cuisine of Michael Mina, cooks up a special dish. A $5 donation to CUESA gets you a sample of the featured dish as well as an organically grown culinary herb start. Experience the demo at the Cellar at Macy's Union Square, San Francisco. Seating starts at 2 pm; event starts at 3 pm.

Inside the Hen House ~ April 20

Do you know where your chicken comes from? Find out more in this panel discussion sponsored by CUESA. Carole Morison, the former chicken farmer featured in Food, Inc., will tell the story of her 23 years working within the industrial poultry system, in which growers must agree to inhumane practices that cause water and land pollution and produce birds full of antibiotics. She will be joined by farmers Norman and Aimee Gunsell of Mountain Ranch Organically Grown, who raise 500-800 chickens at a time—organically and on pasture. Michael Pollan, author of Food Rules, In Defense of Food, and The Omnivore's Dilemma, will introduce the panelists and frame the debate. The panel will be moderated by Anya Fernald, who launched Slow Food Nation and now supports the development of values-driven food businesses through her company, Live Culture. The event begins at 6:30 and will be followed by a reception with farmers' market refreshments. Tickets are $5.00 and available here.

Introduction to Bee Hive Management at Glide ~ April 17

Susan Prentice and Paul Koski of the San Francisco Beekeepers Association will be co-facilitating a workshop on bee hive health, honey production and storage, and extraction techniques. Proceeds will help cover the cost of implementing a rooftop bee hive as part of Graze the Roof, an education and demonstration rooftop container garden on the Glide Foundation roof. Learn more or RSVP with Graze the Roof here.

Request for Proposals

CUESA is requesting proposals for the creation of an online data collection tool that would serve as an easy-to-use online application system and sustainability assessment for our market sellers. Criteria for selection will be based on credentials, experience creating similar tools, and commitment to and experiences in working with a nonprofit organization. Contact Dave Stockdale to obtain the full RFP package. Proposals will be accepted through April 30, 2010.

Work for CUESA Through JOBS NOW!

CUESA is now hiring a part-time Market & Event Assistant and a part-time Administrative Assistant through the special stimulus funding for San Francisco County's Jobs Now! program. To be eligible, you must be a San Francisco resident, have a child under the age of 18, and be unemployed or qualify as low income. Learn about the positions on the CUESA website or visit the JOBS NOW! site to apply.

Saturday, April 10 ~ Market to Table

11:00 am - Seasonal cooking demonstration and book signing
Romney Steele, author of My Nepenthe: Bohemian Tales of Food, Family, and Big Sur

11:45 am - Seasonal cooking demonstration
Charles Vollmar, Epicurean Exchange

Tuesday, April 13 ~ Food Wise Booth

12:30 - 1:30 pm - Sarah Henkin, CUESA's market chef, will give out recipe cards and samples of a simple meal made with market ingredients. She'll also be on hand to offer advice for all your seasonal meal planning.

Saturday, April 17 ~ Goat Festival

10:00 - 11:00 am - The Goat Girls (Jennifer Bice of Redwood Hill Farm and Creamery, Laura Howard of Laloo’s Goat’s Milk Ice Cream, and Mary Keehn of Cypress Grove Chevre), founders of SuperGoat.org, will give a talk about the benefits of goat milk and other goat products. After their talk, the Goat Girls will hold court at an education table with information and samples of goat milk products. CUESA will also feature a guide to goat cheeses found in the market with samples!

11:00 am - Seasonal cooking demonstration
Mark Dommen, One Market

11:45 am - Seasonal cooking demonstration and book signing
Maggie Foard, Author of Goat Cheese

12:30 pm - Book talk, interview, and signing
Gordon Edgar, author of Cheesemonger: A Life on the Wedge

All programs take place in CUESA's Dacor teaching kitchen, in front of the Ferry Building on the north side.

When Nona Lim and Jennifer Tuck of Cook! San Francisco set out to plan, gather, and prepare the food for the Plastiki expedition, they had no small task ahead of them. In fact, planning and sourcing meals for six people at $15 a day for an 11,000-mile trip from San Francisco to Sydney was a voyage in and of itself.

Near the end of last year, Lim and Tuck responded to a call from Jo Royle, the skipper on the Plastiki, Adventure Ecology’s catamaran made from 12,000 post-consumer plastic bottles made in part to document the Eastern Pacific Garbage Patch. Royle wanted an alternative to the pre-packed meals that sailors often take on such trips. “She described long journeys where she’d live for months on freeze-dried food and the ill consequence that has on the body,” recalls Tuck.

The pair — and the crew of chefs that Nona employs to prepare the ready-made meals she sells through Cook! San Francisco — were up for the challenge. “We wanted to provide something healthy and flavorful over a three–month period, which is pretty tough,” says Lim. And, seeing as how the Plastiki expedition is focused on sustainability, Lim and Tuck decided it would be a great opportunity to incorporate as much local, Bay Area-produced food as possible. The answer, they soon realized, would be to prepare meals based largely on home-canned stewed meat and dehydrated vegetables. They added a pressure cooker to the equation, collected and developed recipes (including quite a few by pressure cooker expert Lorna Sass), and set about making it happen.    

That’s where Everything Under the Sun’s Bill Crepps, a farmer known for his wide range of dehydrated products, entered the picture. When Tuck approached him with a list of ideas, Bill saw it as an opportunity to try out some new things. “Finding Bill was a dream come true,” she says. “He was willing to dehydrate any and all veggies he could get his hands on – and the experimentation began!”

“She would tell me what she needed; if I had it I’d dry it for her,” recalls Bill. “If I didn’t, I’d find someone who did. That’s how Dirty Girl Produce got involved—with carrots and beets—and Eatwell Farm with leeks.” Once dehydrated, most of the produce weighed around one tenth of what it had fresh; for instance, 20 pounds of fresh carrots became a mere two boat-friendly pounds of dried carrots. Crepps also experimented with olive oil and salt to create chips with vegetables like kale, eggplant, and cilantro (his personal favorite). And with the help of some regular customers, put together a Plastiki-inspired soup mix that combines his kale, onions, garlic, and peppers for his every-day shoppers who want an easy way to flavor beans or broth-based soups.

“The crew were the guinea pigs for a lot of stuff I hadn’t dried before,” says Bill, who tends to dehydrate things like apricots, mandarins, and tomatoes. He ended up donating a portion of the food (such as a big batch of summer squash he’d dried last summer) and selling a great deal of it at cost. In return, he says the effort reinforced the fact that he could dehydrate fresh produce that doesn’t sell year-round, and market it to backpackers and others who need a nutritious alternative to the pre-packed meals sold in stores like REI.

As for meat, Tuck and Lim ordered more than a hundred pounds of organic grass-fed lamb and beef from Marin Sun Farms (with the goal of providing seven to eight ounces of meat per person, per day). In the Cook! SF kitchen, they canned 110 quart-sized mason jars full of beef bourguignon, lamb ragout, Thai chicken curry, lamb tagine, and some additional meat in stock for the crew to use in their own recipes. “We had four pressure cookers that each fit four mason jars that had to cook an hour and a half in order to properly preserve the meats. If you do the math, we were in the kitchen many, many hours.” The crew was also given back-up jerky and other forms of preserved meat from sources like Fatted Calf, in case the canned meat doesn’t hold up in tropical temperatures. (See a video of Jo Royle preparing Beef Bourguignon on the boat.)

The Plastiki left Sausalito on March 2, with an initial supply of fresh fruits and vegetables (see their kitchen at right), but have been transitioning to the preserved food over the last week. There is also a small hydroponic garden on board the ship, which will provide occasional fresh greens for the six crew members. And. of course, they enjoy occasional fish when they can catch them. (To date they have only caught one tuna and hope to call attention to diminished fish populations while on their journey.)

In a recent email from onboard the ship, where the crew regularly blogs and shoots footage for a film about the voyage, Royle discussed her efforts in the boat’s kitchen. “I am trying to move the guys away from simply opening the yummy Cook! SF canned food to experimenting with the dried. I made Lorna [Sass]’s veggie bean chili — and adapted it a little to include lots of Bill’s vegetables. It was sooo good.”

Before the boat launched, David de Rothschild, the founder of Adventure Ecology and the Plastiki expedition leader, also commented on the community-wide effort to stock the vessel with local food. He wrote: "The Plastiki has [been] exposed to many diverse, curious, passionate and incredibly generous individuals and none more so than the committed and diverse group of organic farmers and local suppliers who have not only overwhelmed the team and myself with their carefully crafted meals, snacks ands treats but they have also deeply inspired me with their unrivalled commitment to authenticity, quality and community spirit."

This is the most up-to-date information about which sellers will be attending the market as of Friday. If there are no changes to a seller's status, they will not be listed. You'll find a list of which farmers regularly attend each market here. Please understand that there are often last-minute changes—it's the nature of farming!

Saturday, April 10

Returning: Happy Quail Farms

Tuesday, April 13

no changes

Thursday, April 15

no changes

Plentiful /returning this month (weather willing): Stockton red onions, flowering arugula, fresh goat cheese, English peas, rhubarb, raspberries, squash blossoms, dandelion greens, fresh bay leaves, miners' lettuce, hot house tomatoes and cucumbers, spinach, asparagus, avocados, pastured goat, green garlic, spring onions, kumquats, nettles, broccoli, rapini greens, artichokes, baby turnips, carrots, strawberries, mizuna, radishes and radish greens, fava beans, pastured eggs, baby beets, Belgian endive

Winding down/limited supply: Brussels sprouts, tulips, many varieties of citrus, lilacs, hyacinth

Farms/Vendors returning this month (weather willing): Happy Quail Farms, Balakian Farms, Lucero Organic Farms, Bodega & Yerba Santa Goat Cheese, White Crane Springs Ranch

Farmer and Vendor items not to be missed:
Queso fresco from Bodega Goat Cheese, whole wheat tortillas from Massa Organics (NEW!), “Super” tulips from Thomas Farm (now on Thursdays and Saturdays)

Featured Recipes for April:

Asparagus Soup with Curry & Crème Fraîche from Mourad Lahlou, Aziza

Tender Spring Green Salad with Almonds, Radishes, Chèvre, and Kumquat from Leif Hedendal, local chef

Roasted Loin of Goat with Spring Vegetables, Herb Butter and Barley from Louis Maldonado, formerly of Café Majestic, now of Aziza (March 28, 2009)

Rhubarb-Almond Bars from Aïda Mollenkamp, former food editor, CHOW (May 3, 2008