The CUESA kitchen team will sell open-faced grilled asparagus sandwiches with fresh goat cheese on Acme bread for a $1 donation.  While you are in the kitchen visit the Asparagus Education Booth to learn all about how asparagus is grown and pick up CUESA’s favorite asparagus recipes from cooking demos past.

David Bazirgan, Chez Papa Resto

Take a tour with CUESA to Blue Bottle Coffee Co. and Hodo Soy Beanery, two East Bay businesses that have mastered the art of bean alchemy. James Freeman, owner of Blue Bottle, will lead a tour of his state-of-the art coffee roasting facility, show us how they create some of the Bay Area’s most coveted caffeinated concoctions, and share a freshly prepared coffee cupping. We’ll also take a tour of Hodo Soy’s new facility, where soybeans are transformed into luscious soy milk, tasty tofu and silky yuba (the thin sheets that rise to the top of warmed soymilk, known as tofu’s “sexy and elegant cousin” and often enjoyed like fine sashimi). There will be special treats at each stop and opportunities to get your burning questions answered. Our final stop will be the up-and-coming Jack London Market, where we will eat lunch made with farmers' market ingredients by CUESA's market chef and get a tour of this exciting new addition to the East Bay foodscape.

The tour costs $25 and includes lunch. Participants can choose from two departure and return locations: the Ferry Building in San Francisco or the Lake Merritt BART station in Oakland. We will ride in a comfortable bus. Tickets are nonrefundable.

Learn more and buy tickets here >

11:30 - 1

6 - 8

Thanks to a recent collaboration with CUESA, the California Culinary Academy (CCA) is hosting a series of farmer lunches and dinners in the student restaurant, Carême 350. The prix fixe meals mark the culmination of each class' culinary education and will feature produce grown by a local farmer. The next event includes lunch from 11:30 am -1:00 pm or dinner from 6-8 pm, will feature the latest bean variety from Rancho Gordo. Tickets available through Open Table >

Diners wil have the option to choose form the following:

Appetizer:
Vallarta white bean salad with braised squid
Brazilian style  Vaquero  (black bean)  soup
Red quinoa salad with avocado, potatoes and a stuffed squash blossom
Entrée:
Red wine short ribs with berlotti beans,  polenta and swiss chard
Chili relleno with Spanish rice and pinquito beans
Pan seared halibut with yellow Indian woman beans, spring vegetables and buttery nage
Dessert:
Amaranth  pudding with fresh strawberries
Mexican flourless chocolate cake
Halo halo with sangre de toro beans and a coconut cookie

(The ingredients in italics come from Rancho Gordo)

6 - 8

Climate change is coming, and our food is implicated. Research estimates that our food system is responsible for as much as one-third of greenhouse gas emissions, yet one study showed that the nation's top newspapers mentioned food and agriculture in only 2.4 percent of climate change articles. Anna Lappé’s latest book has a simple message: if we are serious about addressing climate change, we have to talk about food. Diet for a Hot Planet: the Climate Crisis at the End of Your Fork and What You Can Do About It voices the dreams, tales, and warnings of the farmers and eaters at the front lines of the battle to keep the planet cool and explores the potential for sustainable agriculture to mitigate climate change.

Anna Lappé is a national bestselling author known for her work on sustainability and food systems. Named one of TIME’s “Eco-Who’s Who,” Anna co-wrote Hope’s Edge: The Next Diet for a Small Planet and Grub: Ideas for an Urban Organic Kitchen. With her mother Frances Moore Lappé, Anna leads the Cambridge-based Small Planet Institute, a collaborative network for research and popular education, and the Small Planet Fund, which has raised and given away nearly three-quarters of a million dollars to democratic social movements worldwide, two of which have won the Nobel Peace Prize since the Fund’s founding in 2002.

Sponsored by CUESA, Book Passage, Food First, Community Alliance with Family Farmers, Rainforest Action Network, Oakland Institute, and Center for Food Safety.

Location: Port Commission Hearing Room, 2nd floor of the Ferry Building.

Tickets are $10; all proceeds will benefit the Small Planet Fund. Buy tickets.

The Goat Girls (Jennifer Bice of Redwood Hill Farm and Creamery, Laura Howard of Laloo’s Goat’s Milk Ice Cream, and Mary Keehn of Cypress Grove Chevre), founders of Promote the Goat will give a talk about goat milk and all the different ways to use it.

After their talk, the Goat Girls will have an education table with info and samples of goat milk products. CUESA will also have a guide to goat cheeses found in the market with samples.

Gordon Edgar author of Cheesemonger: A Life on the Wedge

Do you know where your chicken comes from? Carole Morison, the former chicken farmer featured in Food, Inc., will tell the story of her 23 years working within the industrial poultry system, in which growers must agree to practices that cause water and land pollution, mistreat animals and produce birds full of antibiotics. Currently an activist for the rights of family farmers, Morrison will share harrowing insights she gained and lessons she uses to help farmers improve local food systems.  She will be joined by farmers Norman and Aimee Gunsell of Mountain Ranch OrganicallyGrown, who raise 500-800 chickens at a time—organically and on pasture—and sell the birds at the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market. The Gunsells will speak about their commitment to sustainable poultry and what that means, and tell how chicken eaters can find better alternatives to factory-farmed meat.

Michael Pollan, author of Food Rules, In Defense of Food, and The Omnivore's Dilemma, will introduce the panelists and frame the debate. Our moderator will be Anya Fernald, who launched the Slow Food Nation event and now supports the development of values-driven food businesses through her company, Live Culture.

The panel will begin promptly at 6:30 and end at 8:00. A reception with farmers' market refreshments will follow.

Tickets are $5.00 and available through brown paper tickets. Some tickets may also be available at the door on a first come, first served basis.

Egg-related festivities

Local cherries are at their peak in late May, but they won't be in season for long! Learn the basics of preserving this delectable fruit in a hands-on class so you can savor them into fall & winter. Al & Becky Courchesne of the Brentwood-based Frog Hollow Farm, operate a farm stand at the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market, run a Community Supported Agriculture program, and have a cafe in the Ferry Building. They will share the story of their farm, explain what varieties of their fruits are best suited for preserving, and demonstrate how to can whole cherries in a variety of styles, from a simple honey syrup to a wine sauce. This event is $15 and participants will take home their own jar of cherries. Space is limited. Buy tickets>

This event is produced in partnership with Macy's and takes place at Cellar at Macy's Union Square