Ferry Building Marketplace: A Foodie's Mecca

A recent visit from a traveling foodie friend from New York City brought me back to the Ferry Building Marketplace on Tuesday. Suzanne and I had befriended each other at MouthfulsFood.com (seven hundred members and growing). With her culinary education and background, I knew Suzanne would enjoy the wonders of the place, especially since there is a small farmers market there on Tuesdays, from 10AM until 2PM.

I arrived at 11AM, just as her ferry arrived from across the bay. Wasting no time in getting down to business, we exchanged packages. I'd brought her a bag of Meyer lemons from our tree, and she arrived with riches galore: a collection of spices from a store in New York, to start my training in cooking Indian food. Pictured here are: (first row) tamarind paste and pomegranate powder; (second row): green cardamom, arjwain seed, curry leaves; (third row) kasoori (methi) leaves, mango powder, fenugreek seeds; (alone) black cardamom; (fourth row) kallongi seed (black stuff), black mustard seed, black salt; (alone) saffron.

Okay, so I won't win any prizes from the Eat Local committee, but I am dying to crack into Suvir Saran's Indian Home Cooking, since attending a cooking class he gave earlier in the year.

We decided to be methodical in our exploration, and headed outside to the farmers market first. But en route, what should catch my eye but these tomatoes, which were unlike any I've ever seen before. They're called Chocolate Heirloom Tomatoes, and were piled on a cart at Farmer's Garden, the little grocery store there. I had to buy a few of those, especially in case my tomato-freak farmer friend, Cynthia, hadn't seen them. (Note: she hadn't! Score!) They are gorgeous, and they are delicious.

We strolled outside, sampling whatever was held out to us: guavas, persimmons, pears, tomatoes, you name it. Suzanne is blessed with the kind of sensual enjoyment of food that lead her to stick her nose right into the things she was sampling, so she could really smell them intensely. She made a scratch in some lemongrass and held it up for me to smell, as well. Having a vast experience cooking, she has one the enviable trait of being able to describe tastes and smells vividly. Oh, how I love being in the company of someone like that: the world is suddenly a bigger place.

It's like when I ate dinner at Blue Hill in New York with my chef friend, Betsy. She can take a molecule of sauce on one tine of her fork, and deconstruct it. And she's always right. I find that being in such company heightens my own abilities to detect the nuances of flavor, as well as my confidence in doing so.

(Note: these photographs mostly in place to display the beautiful stuff we saw at the farmers' booths.)

We stopped at one booth to admire the variety, and realized that it belonged to Michelle at Ella Bella Farm. What a spread! She still had strawberries, along with beautiful baby golden beets, colorful peppers, and so much more. A curious customer wondered if golden beets were tasty, and I had to restrain myself from falling prostrate in front of Michelle's table.

Oh, how I worship the golden beet. As Michelle told the woman, "The greens are some of my favorites." Me, too. My favorite treatment of beets: cut them into chunks and roast them in foil (30-45 minutes at 350°), with a little water to help them cook. Let them cool, and the skins will slide off. Sauté the beet greens in a little olive oil, and plate them. Top with the beet chunks, and drizzle on some nice balsamic vinegar (I use my oldest, best vinegar for this). Add toasted pine nuts and some goat cheese. Heaven on a fork, I'm telling you.

Strolling around the back of the booth, we encountered a pile of celery, and I was struck by how...radiant it was. I know how geeky that sounds, but it's true. I had to remark on this to Michelle, telling her truly: "The celery you see in the Safeway doesn't ever look this pretty." Pretty celery. I am such a farm geek.

Another customer asked, "Is it bitter? Organic celery is always so bitter!" (What the ______?) Michelle assured her that it was not bitter, and the woman chose a bunch for herself. Look at the healthy sheen on these leaves, at right. Can you see what I mean?

I do believe it's possible to acquire heightened sensitivity to the innate good health in fruits and vegetables that are grown sustainably, just as it's possible to taste when food has been prepared with love. I can see how beautiful all these things are. Can you?

Indoors we went, ready for lunch. We'd decided earlier to eat at Boulette's Larder: Suzanne had just returned from the Women Chefs & Restaurateurs conference in Seattle, and I knew she'd appreciate Lori Regis's style of food. We each ordered a different soup, appropriate for the November weather. I got butternut squash, and she couldn't resist the cardoon soup, which arrived with a drizzle of sorrel oil on top. This soup was amazing. We shared a pulled pork sandwich, and that was just the right amount of food. (We opted out of dessert, knowing that chocolates awaited down the corridor.)

Having just experience the raw cardoons at Jacobsen Orchard, I was glad Suzanne let me taste her soup. It was so easy: chicken stock, cardoons, a little salt, and the sorrel oil. Green and brilliant green (alas, no photos).

Suzanne reported, "The soups were wonderful -- the cardoon soup was so simple, so perfect! and the pulled pork sandwich we shared was like none other I've ever had, both in the inventive spicing (ras al hanout!?!?) and the intense flavor of the meat. Someplace like that could work well here in NYC at Chelsea Market, I think."

We shopped until 3 PM: I came home with Scharffenberger chocolates for my daughter, some of the roasted eggplant spread from Affi's (at the outdoor market), and a few more things.

We stopped at the Capay Farm stand, which still sported a great variety of heirloom tomatoes. I stopped to chat with the young man at the booth, and asked about the green variety on display. Knowing that all tomato freaks love all details about tomatoes, I told him about Cynthia's success with the Green Giant tomato. I could see him filing that information away in his brain. We talked about his white tomato, the Great White, which Cynthia has often told me is the best white tomato she grows. Though people are put off by its white color, it has won a number of blind taste tests in which Cynthia has participated.

I offered to trade two of the Chocolate Heirlooms with him (he'd never seen them before, either), in exchange for a Great White. He agreed: score 2, Tana. (Cynthia later told me that she'd been unsuccessful in saving any Great White seeds, so I offered to give her mine. Always ready to help a farmer!)

It's always pleasant to chat with farmy people.

We left the market, and I drove Suzanne all over the prettiest neighborhoods in the city for two hours before we headed back to catch her ferry. At the last minute, we decided she could darn well take the later ferry, so we parked ourselves at the bar at the Ferry Plaza Wine Merchant. The bartender, Cy, had my number: he didn't have a cabernet sauvignon that tasted "like old library books"© (funny how every single person always gets this description instantly), but offered me a glass of Kathryn Kennedy Lateral. Wow. And wow again.

The weather was perfectly November-ish: the rain had passed, and the sunset was beautiful. I haven't been in the place at night, and it was lovely.

The visit was everything I had hoped: Suzanne's ability to simultaneously savor flavors and new things, and to be open to being informed and educated about them by the people who are presenting them, is a gift. I'd start my own tour company but I can't bear the general public after working for nine years in a restaurant. (Those of you who've done the time know what I mean.)

Have you been there yet? What are you waiting for? 

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THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: "Saturate yourself with your subject and the camera will all but take you by the hand." —Margaret Bourke White

Thanks for visiting.
 

Comments

[Jack]

We love the Ferry Place Market, too, and Boulette's Larder is probably our favorite place there.

I had never had a Golden Beet until we moved to Northern California more than six years ago. We've been eating them regularly since then. Hard to know why red beets even exist, as golden beets are so much more pleasurable.

[cookiecrumb]

Darling: I'm sure you don't need to know, but here's another love letter about your posts. Mm.
And! I do beets exactly the same way you do. Sometimes walnuts instead, though.

[Squeat Mungry]

Tana, great post! Suvir Saran's book is awesome, and has taken me from being an Indian food ignoramus to actually being able to prepare Indian dishes at home that I can actually serve to friends (even Indian friends), with enthusiastic responses! You'll love it.

Cheers,

Squeat

[Cynthia]

Tana, you're always looking after me, thanks dawl! Can't wait to get my grubbies on those Great Whites!