My Visit to San Francisco's Organic Food Haven

Before I moved to Florida in 2002, I lived for twelve years in a place just north of San Francsico known as West Marin county. During those years, organic food boomed as more and more small, local, organic farms were established. I was able to purchase many common and unusual fresh organic foods at half a dozen local farmer's markets. For several years, we belonged to a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program, where we paid for the year in advance and every week we got a basket brimming with the vegetables and fruits that were ready for picking at the moment. We visited the farm and knew the farmer. And we had organic food growing in our back yard. Our food was immediate, local, fresh, seasonal, and delicious.

One night I attended a wonderful dinner. The food was supplied entirely by the local organic farms in West Marin and all the farmers were there. That afternoon, a truck went around to all the farms and picked up the food. I was part of the team waiting for it to arrive in one of the farm kitchens, where we spent the afternoon washing and peeling and chopping and cooking. That night, eating with all the farmers, it was quite moving to know that I was sharing my supper with the very people who had grown the food on my plate with their hands and hearts.

These memories came back to me last month when I visited the Ferry Building Marketplace in San Francisco.

It is only fitting that the Ferry Building, which was the main entry and departure point in the city from the Gold Rush until the 1930s, should be recycled into the food center of the city. Aside from the Golden Gate Bridge, the Ferry Building is the city's most famous landmark. In 1957, a the double-deck Embarcadero Freeway was built across the face of the Ferry Building, blocking it from view and limiting it's accessibility. But in 1989, Mother Nature stepped in and knocked down the freeway in the Loma Prieta Earthquake, leaving the Ferry Building and it's surrounding area open for revitalization.

The Marketplace itself celebrates local sustainable agriculture and artisan foods. It is "a vibrant gathering of local farmers, artisan producers, and independently owned and operated food businesses and the customers they serve." Walking in the door was like walking into heaven for me.

The building itself is long and fairly narrow, like an indoor main street with small shops on either side, well-lit with natural light. The central corridor is wide enough for pedestrian traffic to pass in both directions easily, while still being intimate enough that it is easy to hop back and forth from side to side as something catches your eye. It feels more like a street in a European village and not at all like an American mall.

The shops sell either fresh organic food, prepared foods made from those ingredients, or related items such as herb plants, candles, flowers, cookware, and dishes.

Here are just some of the shops I visited (links below take you to the page about their shop in the Ferry Building Marketplace, and also have links to their websites):

• Capay Organic Fruits and Vegetables: Seasonal "glorious fruit and mouth-watering vegetables" grown on a 240-acre family farm in the Capay Valley.
• Cowgirl Creamery's Artisan Cheese Shop: Artisan cheeses made in Marin county from local organic milk, plus premium farmstead cheeses from the United States, Canada, France, England, Italy, Spain and Greece.
• Frog Hollow Farm: "Legendary" fresh-from-the-farm organic seasonal fruits, including nationally-famous peaches, plus conserves, chutneys and marmalades made from their tree-ripened fruit.
• Imperial Tea Court: Owned by a ordained Daoist priest, carries organic teas and beautiful tea pots from China, transforming tea into an art.
• McEvoy Ranch: I used to drive by this olive ranch almost every day and watched them plant the trees over the hillside. Their organically-grown olive oil is made from olives harvested by hand in the early fall and crushed by granite milling wheels within two hours of picking. The oil is then gently extracted using the method requiring the least heat and pressure possible.
• Prather Ranch Meat Company: Meats from an 11,000 acre ranch near Mt. Shasta specializing in organic, sustainable, pasture raised meats--beef and free range veal, grass-fed lamb and buffalo, and pasture-raised Berkeshire pork.

Alongside these were markets such as Far West Fungi, which sells an Incredible selection of organically grown, cultivated exotic and specialty mushrooms. I couldn't believe my eyes to see boxes and boxes of these beautiful mushrooms just sitting there with utter freshness. And two fresh seafood markets selling catch from local waters. And a butcher shop carrying only natural and organic meats with their own charcuterie where they make specialty bacon, jerky, pancetta and prosciutto.

But this is more that simply a market. It is a haven for the most delicious simple foods--way beyond what you can even imagine. Recchiuti Confections, though not organic, are the most incredible chocolates I have ever tasted, and I have tried quite a few! Boulette's Larder is a gorgeous open French kitchen that "evokes an era when seasonal country cuisine defined the hub of life." I wanted to eat every one of their simple dishes set out in big serving plates on the counter.

My best friend Sara and I spent an entire Saturday afternoon there, shopping and tasting. We didn't even get to the huge Farmer's Market that surrounded most of the building, or the open-air Crafts Market across the street.

This is what food should be like: organically-grown, local, fresh, seasonal, beautiful, of finest quality and prepared simply and with care by loving hands. May every community come to have their own Ferry Building Marketplace.