Holiday market specials

• E-letter readers get 10% off local artisan meats from Marin Sun Farms. Just download this coupon (or pick one up at the info booth) and bring it to the stand on either of the next two Saturdays.
  
  
• Lagier Ranches is offering their organic, pasture-raised geese for $10/lb (see sidebar recipe for more on how to prepare them). The geese range from 6 to 11 lbs and can be delivered or picked up at the market on Saturday 12/20 and Tuesday 12/23. Lagier Ranches is also offering their new crop of organic raw nonpareil almonds for only $9/lb through the end of the year.
  
  
• Fatted Calf Charcuterie will make a rare appearance in the Tuesday market on December 23 with a special holiday menu.
  
  
• June Taylor is offering her Christmas cake and other holiday treats.
  
  
• Noe Valley Bakery and Downtown Bakery will have special holiday baked goods available.
  
  
• The following farms are just a few that will have pre-packaged gift options: Bella Viva Orchards, Marshall's Farm Natural Honey, G.L. Alfieri Farms, Allstar Organics.

The perfect gift

The picky shopper, the market regular, the timid newbie: our farmers' market gift coins are just the thing for everyone on your list. For $25, you get 25 one-dollar tokens good at any seller's stand at the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market. They come pre-wrapped with a surprise treat from the market inside. Coins are available on Saturdays and Tuesdays all month at the information booth.

Ferry Plaza Farmers Market tote bags, aprons and cookbooks are also for sale at Bay Crossings, inside the Ferry Building, if you'd like to complete the package. Check out the Holiday Gifts section of our website for more farm fresh present ideas.

Complimentary gift wrapping

Every gift-giving season, we encourage our customers to do their holiday shopping at the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market. For the next two weeks, we'll be providing an extra motivation―we'll wrap farmers' market gifts for you at no cost! Our gift-wrapping station will be set up at the information booth from 8:00 am to 12:30 pm.

We're open Christmas week

This year, since none of the major holidays fall on Tuesdays or Saturdays, The Ferry Plaza Farmers Market will remain open through the month. You're invited to enjoy uninterrupted shopping on Dec 23rd, 27th, and 30th.

New Ferry Building valet parking rates

As locals and visitors know, parking in San Francisco can be challenging. In July 2008, parking by the Ferry Building was impacted by the sudden closure of the Pier ½ parking lot. Since then the building managers have been working with the Port of San Francisco on a long term solution for Ferry Building and mid-Embarcadero parking needs. During this holiday season the building managers are testing extended valet parking services to assist those shoppers and visitors who require convenient adjacent parking. Valet will run Sunday through Friday from 9:30 am to midnight along the curb in front of the Ferry Building. On Saturdays, valet is available from 8 am to midnight in front of Pier ½, just north of the Ferry Building. See the rates here >

Petition for a Sustainable Secretary of Agriculture

Inspired by Michael Pollan's New York Times Op-ed, Farmer in Chief, sustainable food advocates — including Alice Waters, Dan Barber, Wendell Berry and Marion Nestle — have all signed this crucial online petition. Today, over 34 thousand advocates have urged president-elect Obama to choose a Secretary of Agriculture with "a significant grassroots background in promoting sustainable agriculture to create a prosperous future for rural America and a healthy future for all of America’s citizens." Learn more or sign the petition here>

Alice Waters at the Ferry Building this Saturday

Waters will be signing her new book, Edible Schoolyard: A Universal Idea at The Gardener inside the Ferry Building from 10 am - 12 noon.  Edible Schoolyard recounts the story of how Alice, a small group of volunteers, and a school principal planted the Edible Schoolyard in an urban public middle school in Berkeley. 

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

Saturday, December 13 ~ Market to Table

11:00 am - Seasonal cooking demonstration
Staffan Terje, Perbacco

This is our last program in the market this year! Educational events return Saturday, February 7th.

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

Terra Madre is a biennial meeting of Slow Food International that takes place in Turin, Italy. This year, CUESA worked with the local and international branches of Slow Food to help send Greg Massa and Raquel Krach from Massa Organics and Armen and John Carlon from Sierra Cascade Blueberry Farm to the conference.

Massa Organics

Opportunity for cultural exchange was everywhere at this year’s Terra Madre, which hosted 7000 people from 153 countries. We spoke with rice farmers from Madagascar, India and Thailand, learned about the wild almond groves in Uzbekistan, and ate sausage made near the tiny Portuguese village where Greg's grandfather was born.

We did bring back a few nuts-and-bolts ideas that will be directly applicable to our farm. We learned about some interesting grains that we could experiment with, such as einkorn, one of the earliest cultivated forms of wheat with a more easily digestible form of gluten than modern wheat, and fonio, a small-seeded millet from Africa.

From a philosophical perspective, there was even more to take home — some of it new, and some a confirmation of what we already believe. For example, one of our farm goals is to grow and market our rice without harming small farmers in other parts of the world.  This means that we won’t be exporting our rice cheaply, but it also means that we won’t grow Basmati or Jasmine rice, because we wish to avoid stealing the genetic heritage of generations of small Thai or Indian farmers who developed those varieties. Growing those varieties here in California would impact the ability of Asian farmers to export their rice to the more lucrative US market.  Our discussions with some farmers from Madagascar who grow pink rice confirmed this for us.  READ MORE >

Sierra Cascade Blueberry Farm

Everyone at Terra Madre was somehow involved in a food community, whether it was as a farmer, food producer, food advocate, chef, or student.  The conference itself was an amazing feat given the sheer number of attendees, and the many topics discussed — from climate change to education to tradition and technology. Each session was translated into eight languages!! The focus of this year’s conference was youth involvement; it was so uplifting and inspiring to meet young people from all over the world with new energy and passion for something that we’ve been involved with for most of our adult lives. 

But the experiences we’ll remember most happened in the hours between the official programming — when we had the chance to get to know and learn from our fellow delegates.

We were housed with approximately 30 other Americans (the best group of people!)  in a small hotel in the town of Fossano, 45 minutes southwest of Torino. We ate breakfast and dinner and traveled to and from the conference together every day. Over the course of the week, our interests melded and overlapped, and we all learned so much from each other. John and I had never been on a bus where everyone was looking out the window and discussing the food growing along the roads!  READ MORE >

Market update

Seasonality synopsis for December