Ferry Plaza Market

Of all the farmers' markets I attend regularly, Ferry Plaza has got to be the very highest in quality. The vendors seem to save their best produce for this market. How do I know? Many of them also sell at other markets in the immediate area and sell at lower prices reflecting the grade of the produce. I've seen them and made purchases.

But for the most part Ferry Plaza attracts small producers that are content to sell exclusively at the Saturday or Thursday market. The Thursday market is much smaller than the one on Saturday, and it's seasonal, not year round. New vendors are allowed to sell on Thursdays until they graduate to the Saturday market.

Some of the small producers sell specialty produce, much of it organic, not usually seen elsewhere.

But the market is not limited to fresh produce. There are meat and poultry producers

Bakeries

Several dairy operations providing yogurt, cheese, and butter

Olive Oil and Balsamic Vinegar producers

Flower growers and pizza vendors

Ranchers marketing preserves, nuts, candies and dried fruit

Smoked fish producers who also sell sandwiches

There are vendors selling fresh and dried herbs as well as flavored salt

The list goes on and on, but since a picture is worth a thousand words, I'll be posting a slide show of Ferry Plaza Farmers Market soon.

The Spice Shop

This British culinary institution started because the woman who owns it was looking for extra income to complete grad school. Her weekend spice stall turned into an international business, the shop now sells its products all over Great Britain and Ireland and exports all over the world. This photo was taken in a small gourmet grocery store in Westport Ireland, but more about that later. Upon entering the small, postage stamp sized store in London just blocks from the Portobello Road antiques market, I was stunned at the amount and variety of spices that lined the tall shelving. With insufficient time to really shop I grabbed a few packages and made my way back to the hotel, with plans for a more thorough visit the next time I go to London. I would highly recommend a visit to the store or a purchase over the Internet.

www.thespiceshop.co.uk

1 Blenheim Crescent
London, W11,
United Kingdom
+44 20 7221 4448

Country Cheese

Tucked away mid block on Hopkins St, in the middle of Berkeley's "gourmet ghetto" is a small store with an amazing collection of high quality products. Country Cheese is not just a cheese store. I stumbled upon it as I walked between Monterey Market where I purchased dirt cheap produce and Berkeley Horticultural Nursery, where I intended to adopt some tomato plants for my garden.

Cheese, teas, coffees, spices, chocolates, condiments and much more pack this small 3 aisle store. It has become a most valuable resource for finishing salts because their prices are excellent. Fume De Sel is the most expensive at $60 per pound, but who needs a pound? At $3.75 per ounce it's affordable to everyone. The Salish alder smoked salt is one of my favorites of the smoked salt group and is priced lower here than anywhere I have seen it on the Internet. At $12 per pound they are giving it away. For texture it's difficult to resist the black lava salt with it's square, concave crystals.

Besides the 3 salts listed above, they also sell Murray River pink salt from Australia, one of the most popular finishing salts of all, as well as Hawaiian Alea salt. But we can't stop at the salt... the cheese selection is commendable, but fairly small for a store that has cheese in its name. I did expect more. the selection is nice and many were perfectly ripe and ready for immediate use, a big plus in my estimation.

This small purveyor of comestibles also had a very broad range of exceptional chocolates including Vosges of the bacon/chocolate, wasabi/chocolate, pink peppercorn/lemon chocolate fame. It's worth a trip there just to see what boutique chocolates are currently on the market. One Easter, instead of a dessert, I supplied my guests with a tasting of Vosges chocolates and we all had a wonderful time guessing the ingredients.

(510) 526-1333
1578 Hopkins St

Berkeley CA 94707

Salt of the Earth...

While some would disagree, the texture of various salts seems more important than the actual taste. Some salts have more minerals or a higher degree of salinity, but unless they are flavored, they're pretty much the same...salty. Ah, but that's the rub, many salts are flavored and what a difference that makes, especially among the smoked salts.

Salish, the alder smoked salt of the Pacific Northwest is intense and I like its grayish brown color and small gravel like granules. Halen Mon, the Welsh oak smoked salt has a lighter smokiness with flat crystal flakes and a pale gray color. Having purchased a generic black smoked salt with fine textured crystals, I admit to that being the smokiest of them all. Even in a double bag, its aroma wafted through the kitchen for months, although it was tucked in the back of a utensil drawer, so it wouldn't affect other items like herbs and spices that would normally be stored with salt. When asked what was in it, all I could come up with was salt and carbon. I have never seen it again and I believe that is for the best, considering the description. I recently purchased a hickory flavored salt, but have yet to taste it.

Of the flavored salts I have purchased, Halen Mon Vanilla flavored flakes seems the most exotic, or perhaps an Italian truffle salt, or an hibiscus salt. But I haven't yet tried the latter two or a red pepper infused salt. Some flavored salts really fall flat, as did a sage salt and lemon salt I recently acquired. The ideas were better than the products, so a little experimentation with those combinations might be in order. I've already made my own lavender and rosemary salts with some success.

Pink salts have the most obvious mineral inclusions of iron, creating lovely coloring from the deep rust of Hawaiian Red or Alea salt to the soft pink of Real or Himalayan salt. To my palate, Real salt has the highest salinity level, and I usually refer to it as "salty salt" and reserve it for use on popcorn.

When it comes to textured salts, Murray River salt from Australia is my go to salt. I love the pink color and the flakes are just the perfect size, so as not to accidentally over salt something. Maldon salt from England comes in a strong second with light flakes of a modest size; again very easy to use without the danger of over salting foods.

Smoked Paprika

Another favorite flavor enhancer of mine is Chiquilin Smoked Paprika. It is smokey and rich, but has no heat. I first picked up a can because I was looking for a way to "cut" chipotle powder, to maintain the smokiness, but reduce the heat. This was the perfect answer for my needs. There are other brands of smoked paprika available in the Bay Area, but so far, this is the exact smoke flavor I'm looking for.

This spice is perfect to use when stove top grilling indoors. Using it in a marinade for meats or poultry will give them an outdoor barbecue taste. It's so good on its own, sometimes chipotle powder is forgotten altogether. It typically sells for $1.39 - $2.29 in markets.

Corti Brothers Market In Sacramento

If a picture is truly worth a thousand words, this review will be too long to read. While the store is not visually sumptuous, everything they stock seems to be and I couldn't stop recording it all with my camera. Since it was appropriate to ask for permission to take the photographs, I was able to meet Mr. Daryl Corti and have to admit that his own quote is the perfect description of the store and it's philosophy, "We don't have everything that is good, but everything we have is good." Oh, better than good, Mr. Corti, much, much better!

Originally, Corti Brothers was going to be a quick stop for guanciale, during a visit to Sacramento. Having read through their somewhat disappointing website, I knew that they stocked it and a few other things of interest including olives and an exclusive, store brand of extra virgin olive oil. That was enough of a reason to go, and the last of my disappointments with this fine market. Besides guanciale, they also stock domestic prosciutto "ends" that have always been appealing to me, for use in thicker proportions than slices can provide. I have seldom, if ever, seen them for sale.

My foodie heart skipped a beat when I saw Halen Mon, Maldon, and Fleur de Sel all sitting side by side in the spice aisle. Then my eye wandered and found Murray River salt, in two sizes, mind you, along with some Italian, Hawaiian, and Japanese salts. This store must be Mecca for any person appreciating a great diversity of finishing salts. Even at this distance from San Francisco, a trip for salt alone would be worth the time and travel expense. I don't know of a single store in the city that carries even two of these. Heck, I ordered from the source for Halen Mon because it was difficult to find, and with shipping charges paid just about the same as it was priced here. It wasn't until I edited the photos that I discovered the spice aisle was full of Penzy's spices.

A wide variety of Italian imports and pantry staples were hard to miss. Several brands of panforte were available, along with pannetone, ceci (garbanzo) and semolina flours, pine nuts, polenta, and ceci beans. the selection of imported pasta was large enough to fill an entire aisle.

But don't think this market is exclusively stocked with Italian items. it has everything you can imagine, soup to nuts. Speaking of soup, Campbell's sells in every super market in every city, but when was the last time you saw a can of Scotch Broth, Pepper Pot, or Bean and Bacon?

Most specialty stores don't even sell Burrata cheese, but Corti Brothers has two brands to choose from (click on the photo to enlarge for prices, a pleasant surprise awaits). When have you ever seen a can of Haggis in an American market? I don't even remember seeing it in Scotland! And there is even a vegetarian version.

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The first two photos above show just a small sample of the vinegars and wines available at the market. Oil in the etched bottle is from Sciabica Olive Oil company and I have never seen them sell it themselves at Ferry Plaza Market. It's made entirely of Arbequino olives, usually associated with Spanish olive oil. The store brand is pictured in the next photo, and is made and bottled by Sciabica. They were the same variety of olive but pressed at a different time of the year. A taste test will be absolutely necessary, to once and for all put to rest the idea that fall crushings taste better,or to confirm the fact. Either way, it's bound to be fun and educational.

Another wonderful thing about this market is their deli counter, bustling with activity all day long. Next visit should yield an entry about that alone, but there was no time to spend on it this first trip.

When asking the employee stocking wine if they had any dry, sparkling, Italian red wines, he suggested Lambrusco. Never having had a dry Lambrusco, I was surprised and told him I thought that might sweeter than I wanted. He pointed to the 3 of 7 Lambruschi that were dry, not sweet....and we were not even standing in the Italian wine section. Their wine section deserves some further exploration.

If spirits are your downfall, this is the place to pick up a Lost Weekend's worth. I have never seen so many brands of Scotch sitting in one place outside of Scotland, other than the Whiskey Store in San Francisco, one of only three such stores in the United States. They also stock more bitters than I have ever seen in one place. French aperitifs anyone?

http://www.cortibros.biz/

(916) 736-3800

5810 Folsom Bl at 58th St

Sacramento CA

Take Me to the Casbah

If you can't make it to a bazzar in Istanbul, or Tangiers try walking into Kalustyan's in New York City. You get the same feeling of wandering along narrow thoroughfares (aisles in this case) and knowing you are not in Kansas anymore. One step inside and you have left the city for the Middle East, sans an airline ticket and passport. Aisle after aisle is packed floor to ceiling with spices, flours, grains, and condiments. Every color of dal imaginable, every dried legume you ever knew about and several others you hadn't heard of, chestnut, rye, garbanzo, amaranth flours, they're all there just waiting to inspire your culinary imagination.

Having little time and being overwhelmed by the selections, I only picked up 2 items, and vowed to come back to buy more; the longest journeys start with a few steps.

http://www.kalustyans.com/

Located at 123 Lexington Ave
New York NY 10016
(212) 683-8458