Sunday Supper: First Courses

CUESA's 7th annual Sunday Supper fundraiser will bring together farmers, chefs, artisans and farmers' market lovers for a gala reception and five-course feast to benefit our work in educating eaters and supporting farmers. Our all-star local chef teams are still firming up their menus, but we thought we'd give you a taste of a few of the first course offerings. They include:

• Gazpacho with a sardine crostini from Paul Arenstam, Americano
• Grilled Mission figs with Bleu d'Auvergne foam, Marcona almonds, house-cured lardo, and bergamot oil from David Bazirgan, Chez Papa Resto
• Bresaola with persimmons, shaved fennel, and Taggiasca olives from Taylor Boetticher, Fatted Calf
• Little Gem salad with avocado, Asian pear, roasted Piquillo peppers and creamy cumin dressing from Scott Youkilis, Maverick

Join us for supper >

Central Coast Organic Farm Tour ~ September 27

Take in the abundance at two organic farms that sell at the new Thursday market on this visit to Thomas Farm and Dirty Girl Produce in Santa Cruz County. Jerry Thomas will show us around the farm he started in 1971, which remains one of the most diverse the county. We’ll see their flower field, orchard, and vegetables, and meet the family’s animals: a pig, chickens, and peacocks. At Dirty Girl in Watsonville, Joel Schirmer will take us to two locations where he grows beans, basil, strawberries, and more. He’ll also describe his methods for producing the dry-farmed tomatoes shoppers clamor for. The tour costs $25, including lunch made with farmers' market ingredients, and runs from 9 am to 6 pm. Buy tickets >

Kitchen Table Talk ~ the Mayor's Sustainable Food Directive ~ September 29

In July, Major Gavin Newsom issued a new Executive Directive for Healthy and Sustainable Food that articulated a vision of a food system with nutritious food for all San Franciscans, shorter distances between consumers and producers, protections for worker health and welfare, reduced environmental impacts, and strengthened connections between urban and rural communities. Hear Paula Jones, Director of Food Systems at the S.F. Department of Public Health, and Jason Mark, co-manager of Alemany Farm, discuss Newsom's directive and the progress being made in the larger effort to make San Francisco a hub for sustainable food. The event takes place at the Sagan-Piechota architecture firm and requires your RSVP. More information >

UC Berkeley College of Natural Resources Lectures

The Global Food Crisis ~ September 29
Hear a panel of activists, scientists, and social scientists discuss the problem of world hunger and some approaches to the solution. More >

The Buzz on Bees ~ October 2
Hear honey bee expert Claire Kremen talk about Colony Collapse Disorder and the relationship between sustainable agriculture and bees. More >

Saturday, September 12 ~ Preservation Celebration

10:15 am - Seasonal canning demonstration
Todd Champagne, Happy Girl Kitchen

11:00 am - Seasonal cooking demonstration
Karen Solomon, author of Jam it, Pickle it, Cure it

Tuesday, September 15 ~ Food Wise Booth

12:00 - 1:00 pm - CUESA's market chef Sarah Henkin will be joined by Amy Fothergill, the Family Chef, who will be giving out recipe cards and samples of a simple meal made with market ingredients.

Saturday, September 19 ~ Market to Table

11:00 am - Seasonal cooking demonstration
Sandra Keros, local chef

As a follow-up to Labor Day, CUESA hosted a panel focused on farmworkers, featuring the experts quoted below.

When it comes to humanely raised animals and produce grown in accord with the environment, many of today’s eaters know exactly how to shop their values. But what about eaters interested in knowing that workers are treated fairly and paid a living a wage? While justice has become a core component in many definitions of sustainability, it remains a far more elusive and challenging goal for consumers. While we have international Fair Trade Certification for many foods produced in the developing world, a domestic fair trade label is still in the works.

And yet, labor is crucial to food production, especially in the case of sustainable agriculture; the fewer chemicals involved, the more labor is required to keep weeds and pests at bay. Still, says Sandy Brown, co-owner of Swanton Berry Farm, “there’s this idea that farmers simply produce food themselves. There are some very small farms where that’s the case, but in actuality, 80-90% of our food is produced by hired workers. Wage labor is key.”

Many organic growers make it a point to treat their workers well, but in actuality an organic label says nothing about labor standards. A 2008 study by the California Institute for Rural Studies (CIRS) looking at farm labor conditions on organic farms found that while some aspects of the work environment were improved in an organic setting, others were not.
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“Organic farms had better wages than conventional farms, and better bonuses,” says Alida Cantor, a research associate with CIRS, “but conventional farms were more likely to have health insurance and traditional benefits.” And while workers on organic farms experience less exposure to toxic chemicals, they face other challenges.

“Agriculture is the most dangerous occupation in the US, hands down,” says Alegría De La Cruz, an attorney with the Center on Race, Poverty and the Environment. “There are 32.5 fatalities per 100,000 workers. Last year there were six heat-related deaths in California agriculture alone.”

De La Cruz’s family has been involved with the struggle for farmworker rights for decades, and she was encouraged early by Cesar Chavez himself to become a lawyer. While she has seen the movement make significant gains via the United Farm Workers (UFW) — including a number of laws protecting unionized workers from abuse and providing them with basic rights such as unemployment insurance — she believes the problems many farmworkers face are far from over.

"One of the biggest things impacting the ability to organize farmworkers," says De La Cruz, “is the rise in the use of labor contractors.” [Bringing in third party companies] has become a tactic used by employers to avoid liability and to put another actor right in the middle to take ‘legal responsibility’ so they don’t have to be accountable,” she says.  

Instead of the current contractor system, she says, “the more we can do to support small and medium employers with some of those costs of doing business — like a Public Option in health care, for example —  the more we can ensure a kind of co-benefit to workers' rights.”
 
In the case of larger institutional food buyers, labor is even harder to prioritize.  “The anonymity of the supply chain is a huge challenge when it comes to the produce we buy,” says Maisie Greenawalt, Bon Appétit Management Company (BAMCO) Vice President in charge of strategic initiatives and purchasing. “In the institutional system, there are so many stops that, say, a head of lettuce makes between Salinas Valley and the school or museum where we might end up serving it. There are multiple layers of packing and distribution.”

Nonetheless, BAMCO has prioritized labor issues, most notably by working with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers to sign a code of conduct in their purchasing agreement for fall and winter tomatoes. More recently, BAMCO created a fellowship program to engage young activists in assessing the labor practices on the farms the company works with through its Farm to Fork initiative, to create a set of best practices. “We want to establish a baseline set of priorities when it comes to what workers need,” she says. “And it doesn’t all have to cost money,” she adds. “Treating workers like they are whole people who have hopes and dreams and goals is a big part of it.”

On the other hand, the current state of immigration policy makes achieving those goals less than easy. At Swanton Berry Farm, the only organic farm in the area to work directly with the UFW and to create a co-ownership program for long-time workers, these constraints are particularly clear.

“We’re trying to do the right thing to promote longevity in the workplace and respect the dignity of agricultural labor," says Sandy Brown. "But if you want to reward people for working for you for a long time and their ability to do that is hindered by the immigration system, it kind of goes against the whole pro-labor concept.”

Maisie Greenawalt agrees. “Some people see farmworkers' rights as an isolated issue," she says. “But I think it really speaks to our immigration policy. Workers would be more willing to come forward and organize if they had legal status. We have a food system and a set of prices that are based on low-paid jobs where the worker takes on a fair amount of the risk.”

On the bright side, CIRS’s Alida Cantor is heartened by the next generation of labor activists.

She says: “A lot of college students and young people are making these connections and caring a lot about it — like folks from the Real Food Challenge and United Students for Fair Trade. They’re coming at it less from a foodie perspective, more from a social justice perspective; they see food systems holistically, and that includes people.”

Photos by Bill Gillette, courtesy of the California Institute for Rural Studies.

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, September 12

In: Bariani Olive Oil, Core Elations, Critical Edge Knife Sharpening, Flying Disc Ranch, June Taylor Company, Juniper Ridge, Knoll Farms, Massa Organics, Rancho Gordo, Short Night Farms

Last market for Season: Brokaw Nursery

Tuesday, September 15

No changes

Thursday, September 17

No changes

Returning and plentiful this month (weather willing):
Asian pears, dates, apples, summer squash and early winter squash varieties, French prunes, artichokes, bok choy, pomegranates, carrots in many colors, frisee, brown rice, Valencia oranges, basil, strawberries, blackberries, raspberries, grapes, eggplant, peppers, wheat, persimmons, corn, onions, lettuces, okra, grass-fed beef, tomatoes, melons, potatoes, wax beans, shelling beans, and Romano beans, jujubes, jicama, radicchio, sweet potatoes, greens, long beans, radishes

Winding down/limited supply:
Pawpaws, prickly pears, peas, nectarines, peaches, pluots, figs, Gravenstein apples, lemon cucumbers, dill

Farms/Vendors that may be returning this month (weather willing):
Flying Disc Ranch

Value Added and Vendor items not to be missed:
French herb salt from Allstar, Tres perros dried chili mix from Tierra, Southern style cornbread mix from Ridgecut Gristmill

Featured Recipes for September

Pear and Spinach Salad from Trish Tracey, Ramblas Tapas Bar

"Drowned" Broccoli Rabe with Tomatoes & Pancetta from cookbook author Joyce Goldstein

Sausages & Plums Braised in Red Wine from cookbook author Molly Stevens

Apple Baby Galette from Kathleen Stewart, Downtown Bakery & Creamery (September 27, 2008)

Cocktail ~ Apples to Oranges from Lou Bustamante, Hangar One Vodka (September 30, 2007)