Although the market is only blocks from Oakland’s Chinatown, it seems to attract few Asian shoppers, who probably do their produce shopping at the Old Oakland Farmers Market on Fridays instead. Typical market-goers are tourists who’ve come to the square for the view of the bay, or locals who’ve stopped to buy produce after breakfast or brunch at one of the square’s many restaurants. The market offers parking validation for a discount at the underground parking garage.

Happy Boy Farms from Freedom, California is a certified organic farm selling a wide range of attractively displayed specialty produce, including bagged salad greens, acorn and butternut squash, gold and red beets, kale, dandelion greens and fingerling potatoes. But this vendor does not post prices in the booth, which makes me reluctant to buy anything for fear of getting in way over my head.

Nick Salazar, brought tangerines, pomelos, mandarins, navel, and the pink-fleshed cara cara oranges from his Lone Oak Ranch in Reedley, near Fresno. Salazar is a 5^th generation California farmer who decided to go organic about six years ago. The family owns 120 acres and leases another 40, with virtually 100 percent of the citrus sold in farmers markets. Salazar says he “had to go organic in order to survive. It’s not like farmers markets were 10 years ago when we had less competition. We had to find a niche.” His navel oranges were $1 per pound and the specialty citrus was $2 per pound.

Field-grown Galinda strawberries came up from Cortez Farms in Santa Maria. The berries were slightly dinged from last week’s torrential rains, but were brilliant red, sweet and flavorful. They were selling for $3 per basket, or $8 for three.

Nuñez Farm from Watsonville had both red and green cabbage for $1.50 per head, radicchio, fennel and leeks for $1.50 per bunch, and large heads of cauliflower for $1.50 apiece.

Most people have probably drunk some of Joe Stabile’s apples. That’s because the bulk of the fruit his 9000 trees produce go into Martinelli’s Sparkling Cider. But when Stabile retired from IBM 13 years ago, he started bringing some of his crop to farmers markets. He sells at three farmers markets per week, and says it takes him the other four days to get the apples picked and ready to sell. All of the 20 different kinds of apples he brought were $1.50 per pound, including the sweet and flavorful Pinova, a relatively new variety developed in Germany.

I wish I’d bought some of Stabile’s Pinova apples. They were the best apples I’ve tasted this year. Unfortunately, I had no more room in my backpack, but I will look for them at other farmers markets this winter.

Chard

Louis Lacopi, who’s been farming in Half Moon Bay for 45 years, brought winter greens, including three kinds of chard for $2 per bunch, broccoli and cauliflower for $2 per pound, and leeks at $3 per bunch. He also sold four varieties of dried beans for $4 per pound: gigante, Italian white beans, mandarins and favas. 

Lacopi’s family emigrated to California from Lucca, a part of Italy famous for olive oil. So it wasn’t surprising that most cooking suggestions Lacopi offered to his customers for his produce all started with “heat a little olive oil in a pan and add some garlic.” Brussel sprouts are a common crop in the Half Moon Bay area, but unlike many other farmers, Lacopi brought his to the market detached from the stalk on which they grow. His were tiny and tender, about the size of a strawberry. Lacopi suggested cutting them in half and roasting them in the same pan with either pork or lamb, with olive oil and garlic, of course. I’m going to try one of Louis Lacopi’s suggestions and roast them with a loin of pork. Earlier this year I saw Martha Stewart suggest that for a really elegant presentation, each individual leaf should be peeled from the sprouts before cooking. That seems to me to be an unnecessary refinement, particularly for Brussels sprouts that are small and tender.

I’m going to subject my red chard to Louis Lacipi’s recipe for Italian-style chard. It cooks down to a relatively small amount, so I’ll serve it as a side dish with fish or chicken. Louis Lacopi’s enthusiasm for cooking helped sell a lot of the winter produce at his booth. I’m going to try his Italian-style chard.

Price: $2/bunch for chard

Brussel Sprouts

I didn’t grow up eating many root vegetables, so I want to experiment with the parsnip, boiling and mashing it just like the presentation I saw on one of my favorite food blogs this week. I’ll char the radicchio under the broiler and serve with a sprinkle of balsamic vinegar.

(left to right) Parsnip, Radicchio, Finocchio (Fennel)

Although many Italian people here in the Bay Area have many different ways of cooking finocchio, I will cut mine in strips and eat it raw, enjoying the crisp texture and the licorice flavor. The flavor is so intense that it’s almost candy-like, but at a fraction of the calories. Here's a great fennel recipe.

Price: $1/one large pasnip
$1.50/fennel bulb
$1.50/head of radicchio

Dried Asian Pears and Persimmons

K& J Orchards from Winters was selling a product I’ve never seen before at farmers markets, dried rings of Asian pears for $3 per bag, or two bags for $5. The dried pears were chewy, sweet without stickiness, and still retained some of the gritty quality that is a pear characteristic. They also had 3 varieties of fresh Asian pears, fuyu persimmons, comice pears and Satsuma oranges, all for $2 per pound. Fuji apples were $1.50 per pound. The dried Asian pear slices that I bought barely made it home with me. This is one of the most delicious new foods I’ve found in any farmers market, and like potato chips, it’s impossible to eat just one.

Price: $3/bag

Navel and Blood Oranges

I’ve never seen a variety of oranges I didn’t like. Today I came home with three favorites: big heavy navels, zipper-skinned Satsumas, and deep red blood oranges. Like the elderly women I used to see eating on the trains in Japan, I’ll often peel and eat three or four Satsumas at a sitting. I squeezed some of the navels and some of the blood oranges and had a comparative juice tasting. It took three blood oranges to produce the same amount of juice as two navels. I tried straight blood orange juice, straight navel orange juice and a blend of the two. The blood orange juice (top photo at right) was intense in flavor, like Valencia orange juice overlaid with slightly under-ripe raspberries. It had the heaviest mouth feel of the three. The navel orange juice (center photo) was sweet and full-bodied. The blend of the two (bottom photo) —which stretches the more expensive blood orange juice further—still has a rich red color, but is slightly sweeter than the blood orange by itself. If I were having guests for brunch and wanted to impress them, I’d probably use a mixture of the regular orange juice and the juice from the blood orange.  Price: $1/lb. for navels $2/lb. for others