Special events & announcements
Menu of desserts for the Sunday Supper ~ October 5
Need we say more? Make your reservations today >
- Miette, Meg Ray
Gingerbread cake with spiced poached pears and creme fraiche
ice cream
- Kara's Cupcakes, Kara Haspel Lind
Trio of cupcakes
- Gialina, Sharon Ardiana
Whipped ricotta "cheesecake" with roasted figs and pistachios
- Downtown Bakery & Creamery, Kathleen Stewart
Rich almond pound cake served with summer fruit compote
- Waterbar, Emily Luchetti & Theresa Ebilane
Apple napoleon with cardamom and honey creme fraiche
- Slanted Door, Chucky Dugo
Kabocha squash with hazelnut struesel and pomegranate
whipped cream
- Candybar, Boris Portnoy
Chocolate mille-feuille with zabaglione
- Farallon, Teri Wu
Concord grape tart with cinnamon streusel and brown sugar cream
- Taste Catering, Yigit Pura
Warren pears roasted in Marshall Farm's "Bay Area Blend" honey with black truffle ice cream, pain d'epices, and pine nuts
Sponsor a table at CUESA’s Sunday Supper
Dine in style and support sustainable food systems with nine of your favorite people. Table sponsors at CUESA’s annual fundraising event receive ten tickets, recognition in the program and on our website, premium wines on their table, and they get to choose one of nine different menus available that evening.
View all sponsorship options here >
Get to know your rice
It’s the world’s most widely consumed grain, yet most Americans have never seen a rice plant up close. Join us on Sunday, September 28 for CUESA’s Three Wise Farmers tour to find out more about this important California crop and how Massa Organics grows it ecologically. Then its off to Woodleaf Farm where a farmer famous for his peaches has kept his business alive by growing vegetables after his crop was destroyed by a late freeze. Come learn from wise farmers who not only bring sustainably produced food to your table, but help other growers transition to organic practices. Get more information or buy tickets here >Expanded parking hours
The Golden Gateway Garage will be opening at 7:00 AM (as opposed to the current time of 8:00 am) on Saturdays starting September 27 for market workers and shoppers. The validation rate is $3 for the day, as long as you leave by 10 pm.Waste Wise volunteers are needed every Tuesday and Saturday at the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market. E-mail ashleigh@cuesa.org for details.
Programs at the Market
Saturday, September 20 ~ Market to Table
10:30 am - Meet the producer
Gary Alfieri, G.L. Alfieri Farms
11:00 am - Seasonal cooking demonstration
Cecilia Chiang, author of the Seventh Daughter, co-founder of the Mandarin
10 am - 1 pm - Education booth: Where does your food dollar go?
Location: South Driveway
Saturday, September 27
10:30 am - Meet the producer
Hall Newbegin, Juniper Ridge
11:00 am - Seasonal cooking demonstration
Kathleen Stewart, Downtown Bakery
11:45 am - Seasonal cooking demonstration
Curtis Ross, Alchemy7
10 am - 1 pm - Education booth: Where does your food dollar go?
Location: South Driveway
All programs take place in CUESA's Dacor teaching kitchen, in front of the Ferry Building on the north side, except as noted.
Feature article: Getting to know your foodshed
Try this one on for size: within a mere 100 miles of San Francisco, farmers and ranchers pump out over 20 million tons of food every year―enough produce meat, dairy, nuts, and grains to feed every Bay Area resident more than three times over. Ironically, a great deal of that food gets shipped elsewhere (40 percent of California's crops are exported out of state), while a big portion of what we eat here comes straight off the same trucks, boats and airplanes that ship our own local food away.
This conundrum forms the core of Think Globally, Eat Locally: A San Francisco Foodshed Assessment, a recent collaboration between Sustainable Agriculture Education (SAGE) and the American Farmland Trust (AFT). The study asks Bay Area eaters to begin seeing the area’s agricultural region as a “foodshed,” a geographically-defined production area much like a watershed. It also acknowledges our place among the top food-producing counties in the nation, and suggests that―which a few system-wide changes―the area can become a model for localizing food distribution in communities nationwide.
Why isn’t more of the food being grown here eaten here? Well, for starters, answering that question would require a distribution system that provides shoppers with the source of their food. According to Think Globally, Eat Locally, “food that is identifiable as local…is a very small fraction of both total regional agriculture production (0.5 percent) and of the total U.S. retail sales (2.8 percent).”
More consistent identification of local food would also make it easier to identify crucial gaps in the current system. For example, says Sibella Kraus of SAGE, “what if, in certain instances, the farmers are doing better sending [food] out of the area than supplying it locally? Are there things that we might do to make it advantageous for farmers to make at least one of their market outlets local.” Better labeling of local food might also lead to more people accessing local food, which, according to SAGE's Alethea Harper would be a "boon both to the local agriculture community and also to people’s health."
According to American Farmland Trust’s Ed Thompson, the study is also meant to “acquaint San Franciscans with the incredible cornucopia that surrounds them in order to better protect it from urban sprawl.” He says our foodshed is being developed at a rate of around one acre for every nine new residents in the area -- and often right on top of what is very fertile cropland. Thompson points to the San Jose/Silicon Valley area as an example. “It was known as the Valley of Heart’s Delight and was filled with the most productive, irreplaceable fruit orchards,” Thompson recalls. “Now it’s all sprawl.” If we begin to develop the land more efficiently, using less space for commercial and infrastructure purposes (surface parking lots, for instance) we'd preserve half a million acres of cropland by 2030.
The tie between food and the land is a crucial one, but farmland also has other important values, adds Kraus. “In addition to local food, the agricultural lands around metropolitan areas help protect the air and water, and provide wildlife habitat and flood protection. But most particularly, they contain a city – because cities that are contained are both more efficient economically and more livable socially than cities that sprawl.
Market update
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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 20
In/returning: Bernard Ranches, Capay Canyon Ranch (last week), Woodleaf Farm (last week)
Out: G&S Corn, Shortnight Farm
Tuesday, September 23
No changes
Seasonality synopsis for September
Returning and plentiful this month (weather willing): Asian pears, dates, apples, summer squash and early winter squash varieties, French prunes, artichokes, pomegranates, carrots in many colors, frisee, brown rice, Valencia oranges, radishes, basil, strawberries, blackberries, raspberries, Brussels sprouts, grapes, romanesco, cucumbers, eggplant, peppers, wheat, persimmons, corn, onions, lettuces, okra, grass-fed beef, tomatoes, melons, ornamental millet, potatoes, beans (wax, shelling and Romano), jujubes, jicama, radicchio, sweet potatoes, plums
Winding down/limited supply: Pawpaws, prickly pears, peas, nectarines, peaches, pluots, fresh garbanzo beans, figs
Farms that may be returning in this month (weather willing): Flying Disc Ranch, 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).
Seasonal vendor items not to be missed: Tofu jerky from Hodo Soy, Sikil P’ak from Primavera, Bread and Butter pickles from Happy Girl Kitchen, Bella Donovan coffee beans from Blue Bottle Coffee
Featured Recipes for September:
Sharlyn Melon with Boccalone Lardo and Torn Basils
from Chris Consentino of Incanto and Boccalone
Miriam’s Butternut Squash and Pear Soup
from What San Francisco Families Eat!: Favorite Family Recipes from Presidio Hill School in San Francisco
Ear-Shaped Pasta with Broccoli Rabe & Sausage
from Janet Fletcher, San Francisco Chronicle
Sweet Couscous with Fresh Pomegranates
from cookbook author Paula Wolfert