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Market
Report
St. Helena Farmers
Market
Napa Valley, California
Friday, October 21, 2005 |
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The Market:
St. Helena
Farmers Market
St. Helena (Napa
County),
California
Crane
Park, just off
Sulphur Springs Road,
south of
St. Helena
Fridays, 7:30 to noon, May through
October
Market Amidst Vineyards
Market-Goer: Victoria
Slind-Flor Market Notes: This time of year, the scent of fermenting
grapes hangs in the air around the St. Helena Farmers Market.
Located in
California’s winiest county, this farmers market can be found—after a
little searching—between a vineyard and the bocce court at
Crane
Park
, just south of St. Helena, several blocks west of Highway 29. The market’s been running for
17 years, and, on Oct. 21, had 43 vendors.
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Bob Ellsworth, a member of the board that
oversees the market, says the goal is to limit non-food vendors to
20 percent of the total, “to try to keep the ticky-tacky down.”
The market season ends each year on the last Friday in October,
because “By then, the number of farmers who have produce they can
bring has dropped off,” he says.
Because so much of the
Napa
Valley
is devoted to vineyards planted in premium grape varieties, most of
the vendors come from outside the county. And, in a classic
coals-to-Newcastle case, several of them truck in lugs of table
grapes for sale.
This market seems to attract the wine
country’s well-heeled home cooks and chefs from high-end
restaurants who seek the unusual specialty produce, and luxury
items.
In addition to the fruits and vegetables, the market also
features wild-caught salmon,
Tomales
Bay
oysters, artisanal goat cheeses, ranch eggs, olive oil, orchid
plants, lavender wands and beef from local Scottish Highland cattle.
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Larry Tristano, of Triple T. Ranch,
sells a head of hydroponic lettuce
Tomatoes
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Pears and Honey
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Goat Cheese
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Nancy Skall, of Middleton Farms in Healdsburg,
brought the pears that I picked up, shown in the top picture on
the right.
Skall also was offering nine varieties of beans,
most of which were $4 per pound. In addition to the popular
Blue
Lake
and haricorts vert, Skall had Romano, Spanish Musica, Neopolitan,
Burpee
lima, willowleaf
lima
and Asian long beans. She also had a variety of beans she said were
called “Dr. Martin’s lima beans.” She bought the seed from a
private grower who charged her five cents per individual bean, but
now she saves part of her crop every year for seed. I asked her what
made the Dr. Martins beans all that special and Skall said,
“They’re really good, if you like lima beans.”
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'Royal Trumpet'
Mushroom
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'Hen of the Woods'
Mushroom
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The Solano Mushroom Farm
from
Vacaville was already sold out of wild-picked chanterelles by the time
I arrived at 7:45 a.m.. One chef bought the entire box, more than 6
pounds. But the vendor
still had five varieties of cultivated mushrooms: white bottom
mushrooms, crimini, Organic maitake, oyster mushroom, and royal
eryngii, also known as “royal trumpet.”
The vendor said the maitake
(Grifola fondosa), which some
call the “hen of the woods,” is most commonly used for medicinal
purposes, as an immune-system booster.
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David Little, who runs Little Organic Farms in
Tomales, has been dry-farming tomatoes and potatoes since 1995. He
says potatoes have been grown in his part of
Sonoma
County
since before the great
San Francisco
earthquake and fire of 1906. He
brought 12 varieties of potatoes to market—all for $2 per pound,
including the unusual Anna Cheeka’s Ozette, This creamy fingerling
potato was brought by the Spanish from
Peru
to the northern coast of what became
Washington
State
in the 1700s. Ozette potatoes have been eaten by the local Makah
tribe near Neah Bay,
Washington, for so long that it is now considered a traditional food.
Little offered an unusual seasonal recipe for
sautéed fingerling potatoes with fuyu persimmons.
A Dozen Potato Varieties from Little
Organic Farm
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What I Bought:
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Pears
and Niabel Grapes
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bunch of very dark
Concord-type grapes are Niabels. Unlike wine grapes,
Niabels belong to the Vitus labrusca family and are
native to the
United States.
They have a slip skin and a strong “grapey” taste
that many find unacceptable in wine, but delicious for
out-of-the-hand eating and grape jelly. Mine were so
delicious that they didn’t last much past their
photo session. The grapes were from Hamada Farms of
Kingsburg
,
California
, a 3rd generation family-owned
farm. |
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This assortment of tiny organic pears is from Middleton
Farm of Healdsburg. Nancy Skall, who runs the
certified organic farm, has been selling at the
St. Helena
market for six years. Today, she was offering five varieties of pears: French
butter, Buerre d’Anjou, Sekels, Comice
and Belgian Winter Nellis.
Skall says many of the chefs who buy from
her serve the tiny Winter Nellis pears—also known as quail pears
or honey pears— poached in red wine. The chefs use the French
butter pear halves under seared foie
gras. Skall’s pears all sell for $2.75 per lb,
except for the Comice, which was $3 per lb.
Price: $2.75/lb.
for pears
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Basil
and Assorted Heirloom Tomatoes The basil and
assortment of heirloom tomatoes are from Long Meadow Ranch. The tomatoes
include the very sweet green
zebra and the black Krim, which originated in the
Crimea. Long Meadow Ranch was one of the few indigenous
Napa
County
vendors at the market, and brought the widest variety of food
offerings, including premium grass-fed beef from their herd of shaggy-coated
Scottish Highland
cattle. The ranch, high on the hills above St. Helena,
also produces premium red wine, including Sangiovese and Cabernet
Sauvignon, but lost much of its stock in the recent disastrous wine
warehouse fire in
Vacaville
In addition to the beef, Long Meadow was selling olive oil, heirloom
tomatoes, and basil.
Price: $2/lb. for tomatoes
$.75/bunch for basil
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Hydroponic
Butter Lettuce and Eryngii Mushrooms The
mushrooms are from Solano Mushroom Farm
of
Vacaville. The royal eryngii (Pleurotus
eryngii) variety, which is wildly popular in Italy
and
Spain, is thick and meaty, somewhat similar in texture to the Porcini. I
will saute them with butter and
garlic.
The lettuce, sold with roots still attached, is
from Triple T. Ranch of
Santa Rosa. Proprietor Larry Tristano says he chooses
hydroponic production because it takes up less space per head of
lettuce, and uses seven times less water than conventional methods. I’ll
eat the lettuce my favorite way,
undressed, with some sliced tomatoes and basil.
Price: $2/head of lettuce
$3/quarter pound for mushrooms
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Assorting
Fingerlings Encircle a Purple Viking Potato
I couldn’t resist these
potatoes from
Little Organic Farms. The
fingerlings will be cut and roasted in a
hot—400-degree—oven with rosemary and garlic on an
oiled-and salted cookie sheet. I don’t know what
I’ll do with the purple Viking potato as I don’t
generally like purple food.
Maybe I’ll bake it and see what happens.
Price: $2/lb.
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