Berry Bash ~ Tomorrow

Visit our berry tasting booth from 10 to 1 to sample a variety of berries from the market. The berry curious can also pick up tips about the health and nutritional benefits of berries and take home berry-centric recipes. The CUESA kitchen will host a free berry-focused cooking demonstration taught by Executive Chef Michael Weller from the California Culinary Academy.

Dine with us at Americano ~ August 4

Join us at Americano, where chef Paul Arenstam and Incanto's Chris Cosentino will collaborate on the last of our monthly dinners. The meal will take place on Americano's heated patio at the Hotel Vitale and the menu will be be packed with the summer's best fruits and veggies from Dirty Girl Produce. The menu includes: Heirloom Tomato Panzanella and Cucumber Salad, Whole Roasted California Striped Bass with Fennel Salmoriglio, Spit Roasted Porchetti with Dirty Girl Greens, and Summer Fruit Crisp. Seats are $80, or $100 with wine pairings. Buy tickets here >

Where's your market pride?

Okay Ferry Plaza lovers, we know you're out there!! Are you going to stand by and let markets in places like Flint, Michigan and Durham, North Carolina beat us? Vote for Ferry Plaza today. If we pull ahead and win $5k, we'll use the money to create micro-grants for farmers working to make their operations more sustainable. Vote here and show those other markets we mean business! (If you recruit friends to vote you could also win $50 cash.)

Epicurious in the market ~ August 1 & 4

Epicurious.com, the website for people who love to eat, will be at the Ferry Plaza on Saturday, August 1 and Tuesday, August 4. San Francisco is one of the stops along their cross-country tour of 7 leading farmers' markets. Visitors to their booth will be invited to browse online menus and recipes that showcase seasonal fruits and vegetables. Stop by for recipes featuring products from growers in our markets and register with Epicurious.com to get a free, eco-friendly tote filled with recipe cards and other foodie gifts!

Knoll farms on NPR

"They're the sexiest thing there is." Rick Knoll talks about his figs on National Public Radio. LISTEN to Ripe Figs: The Real Fruit Of Eden >

Miso exhibit at the market ~ August 1

The Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO), the Japanese government's nonprofit organization for promoting trade and investment between Japan and other countries, will also be in the market on August 1. Experts from JETRO will be educating shoppers about miso, the traditional and popular fermented food ingredient.  Stop by for samples of different types of miso and recipe cards featuring ways to combine miso with seasonal foods from our market. Learn more about miso>

Kitchen Table Talk: Food Access and Security in Bayview Hunters Point ~ July 28

The third installment of the Kitchen Table Talks series will be called Community Organizing: Addressing Food Access and Security in Bayview Hunters Point. Guest speakers: Jeffrey Betcher, Bayview Hunters Point resident, community organizer and co-founder of the Quesada Gardens Initiative and Gina Fromer, Executive Director of Bayview YMCA and food security activist. The talk will run 6:30 – 8:00 p.m. at the architecture offices of Sagan-Piechota in San Francisco.

Saturday, July 25 ~ Berry Bash

11:00 am Seasonal cooking demonstration
Michael Weller, California Culinary Academy

10 am - 1 pm - Berry tasting and nutrition info booth (in the south driveway).

Tuesday, July 28 ~ Food Wise Booth

12:00 - 1:00 pm - CUESA's market chef Sarah Henkin will be giving out recipe cards and samples of a simple meal made with market ingredients.

Saturday, August 1 ~ Market to Table

10:00 am Seasonal cooking demonstration
Jerry Di Vecchio and Francoise Dudal Kirkman, authors of You've Got Recipes: A Cookbook for a Lifetime

11:00 am Seasonal Cooking Demonstration
Joyce Goldstein, author of Tapas Sensation, Small Plates from Spain and Mediterranean Fresh

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

Farmhouse Culture is a new vendor at our Thursday market >

Kathryn Lukas’ first taste of real, old-world sauerkraut came while she was living in Stuttgart, Germany in the 1990s. She’d eaten the pasteurized, vinegar-based kind out of a jar and she’d even bought the homemade stuff at a German night market from a vendor who sold it out of barrels. But it wasn’t until she went out to a farm in the German countryside that she became truly inspired by this traditional food.

“[The farmer] made kraut in his cellar. It was more than just white cabbage and salt; he had juniper berries and all kinds of other things in there! It really sparked my imagination,” Kathryn remembers.

It wasn’t just her seven years in Europe, three of which were spent co-owning a restaurant and learning to cook classic German cuisine, that made Kathryn want to ferment. After returning to California she attended the Natural Chef program at Bauman College and wrote a thesis about traditional foods for a degree at the New College of California. Sooner or later, all signs pointed to kraut.

Kathryn wanted to be “part of the revival of fermentation as a food art” and to make kraut with local and organic ingredients. She found the nutrition angle fascinating (and would be happy to fill you in on the details of lacto-fermentation and its probiotic qualities), but her interest is first and foremost a culinary one.

By the time last year’s Slow Food Nation (SFN) rolled around, Kathryn had honed the recipe for Holy Smokes, a kraut she flavors with smoked jalapeños that is loosely based on Salvadorian curtido. That weekend, Kathryn says she handed out eight thousand samples and sold almost a thousand pounds of Holy Smokes. “We were the talk of the market," she says, "partly because you could smell our kraut from across the marketplace.” But the popularity of her kraut also spoke to a growing curiosity about fermented foods. And so Farmhouse Culture was born.

Last February, with the help of her son Shane, Kathryn opened a facility in Santa Cruz. They make kraut in 300-pound batches and sell it at six (soon to be nine) farmers’ markets and a handful of New Leaf and Whole Foods stores. Starting a business hasn’t been easy in this economy; Kathryn had no collateral and couldn’t get a small business loan. But she says Woody Tasch’s book Slow Money -- which argues for aggregating small investments from people aiming to jumpstart local food economies -- gave her the confidence to seek investments from family and friends. “I was raised in a culture where you never ask for money,” she says. “But I know that if it falls flat, I can always work to pay them back. If it doesn’t, then we’re onto something.” Eight small investors helped get the business off the ground and it started turning a profit in June.

Katherine is also pushing the envelope when it comes sustainable packaging. Benoît de Korsak of St. Benoit Yogurt has played an instrumental role in advising her about non-plastic options and she plans to begin selling kraut in resuable, refundable ceramic crocks similar to St. Benoit’s (de Korsak gets 90% of his ceramic containers back from farmers’ market shoppers and 70% back from grocery store shoppers) later this year.

In many ways Kathryn sees herself as a pioneer. On a recent Thursday she was mulling over the idea of a lemon verbena-flavored kraut because it’s so prevalent in backyards around Santa Cruz. And her latest recipe is built around local summer vegetables and herbs like summer squash, mint, and cilantro. She even swapped out Celtic sea salt for Sonoma Coast salt because ingredients flown half way around the world didn't seem to fit with such a place-based food custom. Above all else, Kathryn is excited to help create what she calls a “strong California kraut tradition.” From what we can tell, she’s well on her way to doing just that.

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, July 11

In/returning: Apple Farm, Critical Edge, Flying Disc Ranch, Knoll Farms, G&S Corn
Out: Woodleaf Farm
Out for Season: Bruins Farms, Elston Family Farm

Tuesday, July 14

no changes

Thursday, July 16

In: Roli Roti

Returning and plentiful this month (weather willing):
Okra, figs, plums, field grown tomatoes, melons, dahlias, new potatoes, peanuts, shelling and romano beans, tomatillos, crabapples, grapes, summer squash, nectarines, peaches, pluots, radishes, basil, sunflowers, strawberries, blackberries, raspberries, cucumbers, eggplant, peppers, garlic, onions, lettuces, french and green beans, heirloom roses, corn

Winding down/limited supply:
Blueberries, hot house tomatoes, apricots, cherries, dates (new crop will come in early September), rhubarb

Value Added and Vendor items not to be missed:
Lunch from one of the 6 vendors at the Thursday market, apple wood smoked salt from Allstar Organics, peach preserves from Hunter Orchards

Farms/Vendors that may be returning this month (weather willing):
Woodleaf Farm, Payne Farms

Featured Recipes for June:

Simple and Delicious: Summer Pepper Salad from David Winsberg of Happy Quail Farms

Corn Soup from Roland Passot of La Folie

Pacific Halibut with Farmers' Market Succotash and Yukon Gold Sauce from Anna Davis of Houston’s Restaurant

Cocktail ~ Basil Gimlet from Greg Lindgren of Rye