Menu of desserts for the Sunday Supper ~ September 30

Need we say more? Seats are selling fast, so make your reservation now >

Nicole Krasinski, Rubicon
Cocoa Custard with Saffron Honey, Bartlett Pears,
Candied Pistachios and Pecans

Rebecca Courchesne, Frog Hollow Farm
Warren Pear Sorbet with Golden Muscat Grapesicles, Sweet Meat and Cookies

Alexander Espiritu, The Dining Room at the Ritz-Carlton San Francisco
Pink Peppercorn Pavlova with Lemon Cream,
Huckleberry Sorbet and Apple Compote

Kathleen Stewart, Downtown Bakery
Bombe of Peach, Caramel and Lemon Verbena Ice Creams and Raspberry Sorbet served with Peach Coulis, Spiced Nut Shortbread and a Palmier

Leena Hung, Fifth Floor
Buttermilk Spice Cake with Caramelized Apples and Ginger Gelato

Kara Haspel Lind, Kara's Cupcakes
Chocolate Fleur de Sel Cupcake

Ryan Farr, Orson
Grilled Pears with Maple Pistachio Sabayon, Spiced Palmier and Cream

Charlene Reis, Summer Kitchen Bakeshop
Ginger Apple Tartlets with Caramel

Yigit Pura, Taste Catering
Indian-Spice Roasted Bosc Pears with Diplomat Cream,
Toasted Lemon Cake and Lady Grey Tea Ice Cream

Tune into West Coast Live tomorrow, September 15

David Winsberg of Happy Quail Farms will be on the nationally broadcast radio variety show West Coast Live tomorrow, September 15. West Coast Live will be broadcasting from the Ferry Building from 10 am to 12 pm for the next two weeks, and you can be part of the live audience. More information at www.wcl.org. Tune in by radio to KALW 91.7.

Bags weighing you down? Our Veggie Valet is expanding!

Because of its increasing popularity, the Veggie Valet is moving to its own tent adjacent to our Information Booth. Veggie Valet is a free service that allows you to drop off your farmers' market purchases and either continue shopping or grab your car for curbside pickup. In its new location, starting this Saturday, look forward to more efficient service, more produce bins, and easier access! The Veggie Valet is open from 8 am to 1 pm.

Saturday, September 15 ~ Pepper Festival!

10 am to 1 pm - Pepper tasting
Try fresh peppers and many peppery products from the market.
Location: South Driveway, near Eatwell Farm

10:30 am - Meet the farmer and farmhouse cooking demonstration
David Winsberg of Happy Quail Farms will talk about growing peppers and demonstrate his recipes for Summer Pepper Salad and Pepperonatta.

11:30 am - Cooking demonstration and book signing
Marie Simmons, Author of Fig Heaven: Seventy Recipes for the World's Most Luscious Fruit, will sign her cookbooks and demonstrate a dish that features figs and chiles.

Tuesday, September 18 ~ Easy Market Meals

11:45 am, 12:15 pm, 12:45 pm & 1:15 pm - Enjoy a cooking demonstration by Gary Bulmer, Chef at Williams-Sonoma, featuring the seasonal, regional ingredients found at the Tuesday market. Each attendee leaves with a sample, a recipe, and a suggested shopping list. This is our last Tuesday cooking demonstration of the year!

Saturday, September 22 ~ Market to Table events

10:30 am - Meet the farmer

11:00 am - Seasonal cooking demonstration
Robbie Lewis of Bacar

All events take place in our Dacor teaching kitchen in the arcade north of the Ferry Building's clock tower unless otherwise noted.

Our Sunday Supper is only two weeks away, and amidst the flurry of planning, we take a moment to pause and reflect on the 15 year history of the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market--something we intend to celebrate with relish at the Supper.

Had it not been for the hard work of some extraordinarily visionary people; for the rich soils of our region; for the skill and spirit of all the growers and other market sellers; for such a strong and dedicated community of food-loving urbanites; and for the earthquake that buckled the freeway and led to its removal, finally reconnecting the city to its waterfront, the market would not have come to be.

In the San Francisco Ferry Plaza Farmers' Market Cookbook (written by Peggy Knickerbocker and Christopher Hirsheimer and published by Chronicle Books, 2006) our founding Executive Director, Sibella Kraus, eloquently recounts the creation and evolution of the market. Here, she describes the first market, a one-time event in the Plaza in front of the Ferry Building:

On a glorious Saturday in September 1992, over ten thousand people streamed into the Embarcadero to buy produce from more than one hundred of the best local organic and specialty-crop farmers, to feast on “street food” made by over a dozen of the city’s best restaurants, and to rediscover the waterfront. There was no turning back. In May 1993, the Ferry Plaza Farmers’ Market opened as a weekly certified farmers’ market...

The Ferry Plaza Farmers Market was operated by a newly created organization, the San Francisco Public Market Collaborative. The collaborative’s board of directors and advisory board, brought together by Tom [Sargent] and me, were made up of leading restaurateurs, farmers, planners, and architects, as well as a food historian, a poet, and a farmland preservation advocate. They all shared a common dream of creating a great public market for San Francisco...

Within a couple of years, the market had become the city’s Saturday living room. Shoppers became regulars, ever-more knowledgeable about the distinctions between Brooks, Van, and Bing cherries; and puntarella, Treviso, and Castelfranco chicories.

In 1997, operations expanded when the collaborative began running a Tuesday market in Justin Herman Plaza. In 2000, the operation of the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market was taken over by the collaborative's educational sister organization, CUESA, which up to that point had concentrated solely on developing programs to teach urban residents more about the food they were buying at the market.

We are proud of the market’s 15 year history, complete with high accolades, regrettable blunders, growth spurts, and growing pains. Over the years, we have bid farewell to sellers who retired, moved onto other ventures, or sadly passed on, and excitedly welcomed new faces and foods. We hope you will join us on September 30 in celebrating our rich history, wonderful community, and hopeful future!

See a slideshow of some moments in the market's history >

Special thanks to volunteer Donna Hall for helping us organize the boxes of archived photos!

This is the most up-to-date information about which sellers will and won't be attending the market as of Friday, when we send this letter. If there are no changes to a seller's status, they will not be listed. To find out which farmers regularly attend each market, click here. Please understand that there are often last minute changes--it's the nature of farming!

Saturday, September 15

In/returning: Bernard Ranches
Out: Woodleaf Farm (for the season)

Tuesday, September 18

No news!