A trip to the Ferry Building Farmers' Market

So technically this post isn't about a dish, or even a meal. But let's get real, kids - meals come from food. And food comes from, well, a lot of places. Many of these places are not exactly thrilling shopping experiences. I get some of my food from Eatwell Farms, which is a community supported agriculture (CSA) venture around Davis, CA. This requires no shopping at all on my part - I simply pick up my box on Thursday night outside a local bakery co-operative and try to come up with good reasons why I'm out of change for the local color that lurks outside. However, this week Eatwell failed to renew my subscription so I was forced to "take it to the streets," as kids these days like to say (presumably while skateboarding and drinking high-caffeine sodas).

And thus I undertook a pilgrimage of sorts, to one of the great food meccas in North America. This would be the Ferry Building Farmers' Market, on the Embarcadero at the foot of the Bay Bridge. It's a little intense, since both real food people, various locals, and tourists all clamor in on Saturday morning, but one can enjoy some of the finest things about eating on the West Coast:

1. A plate of chilequiles that would make your mamacita cry
2. Coffee. Really great coffee. Made possible by a local shop that must be making a goddamn killing off of all us desperate for that perfect crema (Blue Bottle Coffee)
3. A cornucopia of fruits, vegetables, meats, cheeses, flowers, beans, bread, crying babies, dogs, ferries, all at prices that reflect the rarefied, sustainable, organic, local vibe

Visiting the Ferry Building at the end of August is like entering an impossible world: every kind of fruit and vegetable seems to be ripe and in season. These are the things that caught my eye - we'll see what inspiration whips up this week.

(To see a version of the photo above with labels identifying the items, click here).