Last demo of the Macy's Get Green series

Next Wednesday, October 10, Warren Weber of Star Route Farms will team up with Cal Peternell of Chez Panisse Café to discuss the future of the green movement and going beyond organic. Cal will prepare a Frisée and Artichoke Salad with Anchovies, Garlic, and Eggs using produce from Star Route Farms. Click here for details >

Focus group this Saturday--help us out!

Are you a regular Ferry Plaza Farmers Market shopper (on average at least twice a month)? If so, CUESA could use your help. We need a few more participants for a Branding Focus Group session in our office, Suite 250 of the Ferry Building, tomorrow, October 6, from 10 to 11:30 am. The Citizen Group will conduct this session, which will be tape recorded to ensure all your feedback is properly tabulated. Your comments will remain confidential. If you are willing to help us in this effort, please RSVP directly to Executive Director Dave Stockdale at dave@cuesa.org today. We'll reward you with some market produce for your time.

Listen & Learn about leafy greens

Learn about proposed food safety rules regarding leafy greens and their impacts on the environment and on traditional small- and medium-sized growers if the rules become mandatory. Kira Pascoe of the Community Alliance with Family Farmers spoke about her organization's position on the subject last Saturday at the market, and you can hear what she had to say and download an action letter by visiting the Listen & Learn page on our website. You can also check out a Sacramento Bee opinion piece on the issue by Judith Redmond by clicking here.

Congratulations to our raffle winners!

Scott Lenau, Mimi Horcabas, Linda Hamady, Jeff Knight, and James Ingels (not pictured) are the winners of the 2007 Year of Dining Out Raffle! Thanks to all raffle ticket purchasers for their support! Our sincerest thanks also to all of the farmers, artisans, chefs, volunteers, sponsors, donors, and attendees that helped make our fifth annual Sunday Supper a fun and profitable event! Look forward to photos in next week's e-letter.

Gourmet Wine Cellar ~ November 3, 2007

Join Gourmet magazine for an evening of delicious food, noteworthy wines and creative cocktails while serving a good cause--a portion of the event’s proceeds will benefit CUESA. The event is at The Galleria at the San Francisco Design Center from 6 to 9 pm. For tickets and information, go to gourmetscoop.com or call 877-490-3337. Tickets are $115.

Celebrate 25 years of pesticide action

Pesticide Action Network (PAN) North America combines science and community-led campaigns to force global phase-outs of highly hazardous pesticides. This year, they celebrate their 25th anniversary with an event right here at the Ferry Building on October 14. Click here to learn more about PAN and the event >

Saturday, October 6 ~ Market to Table events

10:30 am - Meet the farmer
Bill Crepps of Everything Under the Sun

11:00 am - Seasonal cooking demonstration & book signing
Jairemarie Pomo, chef and author of The Hog Island Oyster Lover's Cookbook: A Guide to Choosing & Savoring Oysters, with Over 40 Recipes

Saturday, October 13 ~ Market to Table events

10:30 am - Meet the producer

11:00 am - Seasonal cooking demonstration
Bibby Gignilliat of Parties that Cook

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

On September 16, CUESA led a farm tour to “the land of milk and honey.” This week’s e-letter is a summary and slide show of the honey part of our tour. Click here to read about the first half of our trip, spent at Spring Hill Cheese.

The “Flying Bee Ranch” in American Canyon, at the southern end of the Napa Valley, is just the base of operations for Marshall’s Farm Natural Honey. The ranch is the hub, where the honey house and office are located, but most of the action takes place at 600 hives spread out in 100 locations, all tended by Spencer Marshall. It’s not clear who does more traveling: Spencer, traversing Bay Area highways to visit his hives, or the bees, going back and forth from hive to flower gathering nectar and pollen.

At the bee ranch, Spencer shows our group a couple of demonstration hives. He cracks open the top, gives the hive a puff of smoke (to keep the bees docile), and then looks inside. He offers us each a veil to protect our faces from potential stings, but is not worried about this gentle hive himself. He searches through the frames and locates the queen bee for us. Her long, shiny abdomen stands out among the fuzzier, striped worker bees. “Some beekeepers requeen [(replace the old queen with a new one)] every year,” he says. Spencer thinks that’s too much work; he’d rather wait until each hive needs a new queen. His preference for natural beekeeping methods also means he loses hives every year to disease, since he shies away from heavy chemical pest control. This year he used one chemical: thymol (found in thyme oil), to ward off the deadly varroa mite.

The 100 different hive locations yield honey for over 20 Marshall’s varietals. Some varietals come primarily from a single type of flower, such as Pumpkin Blossom or Orange Blossom, while others are from a certain locale, such as Buzzerkeley or Napa Valley Wildflower. Each harvest is kept separate and transported back to the honey house in wooden beehive boxes called supers, which carry ten frames each.  

Once in the honey house, one of the best smelling places on earth, the honey is extracted and stored. “We only have three machines that run on electricity here,” says Helene Marshall. First, there is the uncapper, which removes the thin wax caps from the frames. The bees build the caps to seal the cells when the honey has the right moisture content.  Frames are placed on the belt and when the power is turned on, they disappear into the body of the machine. A horrendously loud, metallic grating sound issues forth and the frames emerge uncapped. Since the width of the comb is not perfectly even, the thinner parts remain capped and must be scraped manually with a metal comb.

The second machine is the extractor. The frames, now uncapped on both sides, are placed vertically into the big metal drum of the machine, which holds about 60 frames. The extractor rapidly spins the frames, emitting a low whirring sound. A light, honey-scented breeze rises through the open top and the honey flies out of the cells by means of centrifugal force. The honey rains lightly against the edge of the drum and drips down the sides to collect in the bottom. It is then released through a spigot into a storage container. Helene says their honey is strained, not filtered, which leaves bits of pollen in the honey. Straining is like using a colander lined with cheesecloth, whereas a filtering mesh is much finer, more like a nylon stocking.

The third machine is the warming tank, a giant metal tub that heats water to around 95 degrees. The containers of honey are placed in the warming tank if they crystallize, because honey must be fluid to be poured into bottles. The mellow heat turns the honey crystals back to liquid without heating it so much that the flavor and other beneficial properties are destroyed. Most large commercial honey operations heat honey to higher temperatures.

Once the honey is liquid, it is stored in buckets or drums, each labeled by variety and decanted by hand into bottles and honey bears. The wax from the uncapping process is placed into a large wax melter (okay, there are actually four electric machines) that keeps it at a constant 120 degrees. This liquefies the wax, which congeals into globs that can easily be separated from the honey that clings to the wax caps. This honey is Marshall’s only non-raw honey and is sold as the caramelicious Wild West Wildflower blend that is the favorite of many.

Like the bees and the cows of Marshall’s Honey and Spring Hill dairy, all the people who have a hand in operating these businesses dedicate a tremendous amount of time and energy to feeding the rest of us. Farm tours and the farmers’ market are places to be reminded of their hard work and to express gratitude for their gifts. For without milk and honey, life wouldn’t be nearly as rich.

See a slide show of our time at Marshall's Farm >

Thanks to Barry Jan for his wonderful photos!

 

Julie's All-Local Ice Cream

This recipes comes from our Director of Education, Julie Cummins. The recipe originally appeared on the Eat Local Challenge blog.

Yields one quart

2 cups cream
1 cup milk
2 eggs
3/4 cup honey

(Notes: If you like your ice cream less sweet, decrease the amount of honey. Use a mild honey unless you want a strong honey taste. If the honey is crystallized, warm it slightly.)

Combine all ingredients and whisk very well (an electric mixer is ideal), making sure the honey is dissolved. Freeze in your favorite ice cream maker.

Serving suggestion: top with berries or other farmers’ market fruit.

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, October 6

In/Returning: Glashoff Farms
Out: Bernard Ranches, Knoll Farms, Blossom Bluff Orchards, G & S Corn (for the season), Short Night Farm (for the season)

Tuesday, October 9

Out: Blossom Bluff Orchards