Your last chance to be a lunch hour chef ~ Friday, August 22

Learn to make your own fresh summer sandwich & salad using ingredients hand-picked from the farmers' market. Join CUESA and Parties That Cook for a lunch hour you won't forget. Take a seasonal cooking class, then kick back and enjoy the product at our picnic tables or take your lunch to go. The menu: an open-faced sandwich of ham, brie, honeyed pears and black olive tapenade (vegetarian option available) and a salad of grilled figs, caramelized onions and spiced walnuts. Click here to register and see the menus for the remaining evening classes.

Waste Wise tip of the week #12

Reduce food waste by using as many parts of your produce as possible. Leave the skins on potatoes and tomatoes. Experiment with creative ways to integrate the greens when you cook turnips and beets. Peel and chop up your broccoli stems.

Waste Wise volunteers are needed every Tuesday and Saturday at the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market. E-mail ashleigh@cuesa.org for details.

Saturday, August 9 ~ Market to Table

10:30 am - Meet the farmer
Louis Iacopi, Iacopi Farm

11:00 am - Seasonal cooking demonstration
Chris Cosentino, Incanto

10:00 am - 1:00 pm - Culinary information station
A rainbow of flavors: Colorful foods and their nutritional value. Stop by for recipes.
Location: south driveway

Saturday, August 16 ~ Market to Table

10:30 am - Meet the farmer
Freeman Barsotti, Capay Fruits & Vegetables

11:00 am - Seasonal Cooking Demonstration
Gwendolyn Smith, Literacy for Environmental Justice's Good Neighbor program & co-author of the Healthy Community Cookbook

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

Edible weeds are abundant throughout the Bay Area, but identifying them isn’t easy. Neither is avoiding potentially contaminated urban soil and fragile ecosystems. That’s where some unconventional farming approaches come into the picture. Take Nancy Gammons, of Four Sisters Farm, who gathers wild stinging nettles along the banks of her farm’s creek. It’s an arduous process, and not something she has time for all year, but the product is clean, flavorful and sought-after. “Public waterways can be so contaminated these days,” she says, “so it’s important to know that we’re gathering on our own [certified organic] land.”

The idea of a weed is a human construction; a plant becomes a weed when it grows where it’s not needed. Weeds that compete with the desired crop present a challenge, but farmers who encourage and harvest edible weeds transform that challenge into an opportunity. “If there are edible things that we can harvest and sell, then it just makes sense to do that,” says Grant Brians from Heirloom Organics. Grant sells purslane (a increasingly popular wild succulent) and lambsquarter (a pungent spinach-like green), along with the wild sugar beet greens that spring up uninvited. While he doesn’t exactly cultivate them, he says he does watch to find out where these edible weeds grow best and then makes room. Or he finds another cultivated crop to share the garden bed.

Four Sisters also brings purslane to the market and Nancy says that while she doesn’t have to plant it, she is glad to “give up a few beds to it.”

The tiny Healdsburg-based White Crane Springs Ranch is also known for growing wild greens and edible weeds. The farmer, Joseph Minocchi, cultivates a number of herbs and greens that might normally be found in the wild for his famous salad mix, including watercress, chickweed, purslane, and salad burnet. He forages for miner’s lettuce and redwood sorrel from the nearly 80 acres of land that he owns but leaves uncultivated.

“Customers say they like wild greens because they’re packed with nutrients,” says Joseph. “They tell me it fills them with energy.”

Grant Brians agrees that incorporating wild greens into your diet can make an important difference nutritionally. That’s because “some wild plants have a tendency to pick up minerals that might not be as commonly picked up by most cultivated plants,” he says.

Purslane has more Omega-3 fatty acids than any other leafy green vegetable, and has been shown to be a potent source of several key vitamins and minerals. Lambsquarter is richer in calcium, protein and B vitamins than spinach and most other greens. Nettles, meanwhile, are very rich in iron. Why exactly wild foods are so good for us is hard to pin down, but Nancy Gammons has a theory. “I believe that the longer a seed is hybridized, the more likely it might be to lose some nutritional value,” she says. Then there’s the matter of the taste. “When something is wild, the flavor is so strong and savory,” she adds. “It’s like an animal that hasn’t been domesticated.”

Pictured on the right, from top: lambsquarter, purslane, nettles, miner's lettuce

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, August 9

In/returning: Apple Farm, Bernard Ranches
Out for the Season: Brooks & Daughters, Critical Edge Knife Sharpening, Juniper Ridge

Tuesday, August 12

No changes

Returning and plentiful this month (weather willing): apples, summer squash, Valencia oranges, nectarines, peaches, pluots, radishes, basil, sunflowers, strawberries, blackberries, raspberries, tomatillos, grapes, zinnias, duck, pullet eggs, cucumbers, eggplant, mint, nopales, wild pig, peppers, pears, fresh garbanzo beans, squash blossoms, smoked fish, wheat, baby corn, onions, lettuces, okra, figs, grass-fed beef, plums, tomatoes, melons, dahlias, new potatoes, peanuts, wax beans, shelling beans, and Romano beans

Winding down/limited supply: apricots, fresh lavender, fava beans, peas

Farms that may be returning in this month (weather willing): Woodleaf Farms (please note that due to extreme weather last Spring they don't have stone fruit to sell this year but will bring us some of their wonderful vegetables), Payne Family Farm

Seasonal vendor items not to be missed: Heirloom tomato juice from Happy Girl Kitchen, Burbank plum and Meyer lemon conserve from June Taylor, summer squash and corn ravioli from The Pasta Shop, Porchetta sandwiches from Roli Roti

Recipes for August

Savory Crepes with Chevre, Shiitake Mushrooms and Smoked Trout from Chef Samantha Smith

Red Pepper Bisque from cookbook author Linda Carucci

Italian Bread Salad with Tomatoes and Basil from cookbook author Joanne Weir

Stone Fruit Bruschetta with Crème Fraîche Ice Cream from Elise Fineberg, Taste Catering

Yerba Buena Gimlet from Reza Esmaili, Conduit (May 14, 2008)