Market Day : If You Grow It They Will Come

Take a walk through the Santa Monica Farmers’ Market on a Wednesday morning.

The air, washed with an underlying tang of sea salt, is ripe with passing smells. Here are the cinnamon-spice of basil and the warmth of ripe tomatoes. There’s the crackling sharp smell of onions and garlic, freshly picked and drying in the sun. That peppery smell? A couple of bunches of arugula. Then the sweet honey of peaches, the pungent honey of melons. A cool drift of dill.

It’s ravishing to the eye as well: gently ascending scales of yellow, orange and red tomatoes and shiny lavender-purple and deep black-purple eggplants. The outrageous white-to-red blush of Bermuda onions next to the delicate white-to-pink fade of French breakfast radishes. A burst of orange and yellow flowers, startling against dark-green herbs. Perfect rows of slim spears of asparagus, stacked like cordwood. The fluorescent hues of one bunch of peppers; the rich, matte Old Master tints of another.

As you walk, you hear snippets of conversations in a dozen languages. There are the early morning sounds of a city stirring to life, the high-pitched beep-beep-beep of trucks backing up and the whoop of a car alarm. Everywhere there’s the constant squeak of passing pull-carts and the shouts of farmers selling.

Reach out and touch something. The tender fuzz of a peach, the smooth silk of a nectarine. The taut gloss of an eggplant, the ripe give of a tomato, the decadent, almost melting softness of a black fig. It is so crowded it is almost impossible to walk down the street without jostling the person beside you.

It’s enough to send a cook’s mind reeling. Do these greens look crisper than those? What is the difference between a late-season Faye Elberta peach and an early O’Henry? What in the world could you do with these incredibly ugly, but tartly delicious Arkansas Red Indian peaches? Here are some eggplant, squash, peppers and tomatoes. Ratatouille? Or maybe grill the eggplant, squash and peppers and serve them with some cool ricotta and just slice the tomatoes as a starter?

It’s easy to suffer sensory overload. There are so many things to see, to touch, to cook with. . . . Just navigating the roughly four blocks of the market can seem too much.

The best strategy is to get there early and be patient. The horn marking the day’s opening goes off at 9:30 a.m.--try to be there a bit before. First, walk the market once without buying anything. It’ll be difficult, but it will pay off. See what is in season--the items (and, indeed, the vendors) change from week to week. Look at everything and make your plan. Then go to work.

Be aware that all farmers are not created equal. It is distressingly easy to find underripe and tasteless fruits and vegetables here. Having purchased one tomato each from 15 farmers on a single day for a tasting in The Times Test Kitchen, we were amazed to find that the vast majority were scarcely better than what you could find in an average supermarket. But the two that were best (Tutti Frutti Farms and Elmer Lehman) were worth the search. The same was true on different weeks when we tasted plums (frequently underripe) and peaches (the safest buy we found).

One good tactic is to ask questions of the people selling the stuff. Ask about the variety, or how it is best used. If they don’t know, or you don’t like the answer, walk on. Odds are you’ll find it someplace else. Do you really want to buy an eggplant grown by someone who doesn’t eat eggplant?

By law, sampling of cut fruit is forbidden at the market, though it is still frequently done. One good solution is to bring a supply of quarters and offer to buy one of anything you’re considering getting. That way, you’ll know if it’s good. What’s more, you’ll probably be able to skip lunch.

Price is not always an indicator of quality, though you ought to expect to pay more for truly great produce. Our favorite tomatoes were selling for $1 a pound and the best peaches were $2 a pound--roughly what you would expect to pay in a major market.

As are all things agricultural, the Santa Monica market is highly seasonal. Farmers drop in (and out) as they have produce available. And the produce changes too. Some varieties of peaches and plums, for example, may be offered only for a couple of weeks before their brief harvest season ends.

But if you go often enough, you will develop a small group of favorite farmers to follow through the year. Here’s a list to get you started.

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Honey Crisp Farms: When it comes to stone fruit, Art Lange is king. Both the peaches and plums from Honey Crisp Farms won The Times Test Kitchen market tastings. The reason is simple: ripeness. “I wait until the last minute to pick it,” says the former University of California agriculture professor. “Sometimes I wait so long it falls on the ground, and then I’m out of luck. Usually, I wait until it’s just about ready to fall and get lucky. That way I get every bit of sugar into the fruit that I can.”

At his farm in Reedley, near Fresno, Lange plants his trees more tightly together than normal. He uses closely pruned dwarf trees to allow plenty of sun to get to the fruit and ripen it. Then, when it’s ready to pick, the fruit goes straight into plastic cup-lined pack crates to cradle the delicate fruit on its way to market.

“Even a couple of days extra ripening can make a lot of difference between ordinary fruit and super-sweet,” he says. “It’s amazing how the fruit really changes in almost the last few minutes.”

David Mountain Mushrooms: Between Carpinteria and Montecito, in a large abandoned horse stable, David Mountain grows many of the mushrooms that he sells in Santa Monica. The others come from teams of pickers that scour forests from Santa Barbara to Humboldt County. As a result, depending on the season, he might be selling shiitakes, oysters, portobellos, corals, morels, porcini and black trumpets. Prices aren’t cheap--oysters go for $5 a pound and up and porcinis start at $25 a pound--but the mushrooms (even the wild-picked ones) are almost always in top condition.

See Canyon: These days, Bret Schulman of See Canyon has an inferiority complex. Surrounded by farmers selling juicy, dead-ripe plums, peaches and nectarines, he has been known to pull shoppers aside and force a few crisp, tart apples on them. “If you eat nothing but soft fruit,” he says, “you’ll wind up soft.”

Schulman is a pome enthusiast. He grows between 40 and 50 varieties of apples on the six or seven farms he leases near San Luis Obispo. That part of California is not usually thought of as prime apple country, but there is no doubt Schulman’s are prime apples. He says it’s a combination of where he grows them and the way he grows them. Most of the apples come from See Canyon, about 10 miles south of San Luis Obispo, which gets good cold nights, even in summer. At the same time, Schulman dry-farms the apples, rarely irrigating, to force an intense flavor.

Carl Fetzer and Raul Cuevas: On the 50 acres they farm in Riverside County, Carl Fetzer and his partner Raul Cuevas raise peppers--yellow Hungarians, jalapenos, Fresnos and cayennes--onions, garlics and figs. Lots of figs. Lots and lots of figs. In fact, Fetzer estimates he tends more than 2,000 fig trees--Brown Turkeys, Osbornes and Canandrias are what he’s picking now. “I’ve raised figs all my life,” he says. “I’m getting pretty old, but you can always pick up a box of figs, even when you can’t pick up a lug of potatoes.”

Irene Burkart: Irene Burkart is an organic farmer because that’s the way her folks in West Texas did it years ago. Of course, they didn’t call it organic then. “They had chickens and pigs and just fertilized the land with manure,” she says. “There was always plenty of that.”

After moving to California to teach school in Torrance, Burkart moved to Dinuba--between Visalia and Fresno--and started teaching and farming with her then-husband in 1965. He left, she stayed and the farm grew. Now, Burkart and her son farm 40 acres of peaches and nectarines--including white Champagne Babcock peaches, which are just coming into season.

Coleman Farms: For exotic herbs and greens, the best place to go is Coleman Farms. On only six acres of land near Carpinteria, Bill Coleman produces (in addition to the normal run of herbs from chervil to chives) sorrel, amaranth greens, alfalfa, lambs quarters, epazote , hoja santa , dandelions, fresh fenugreek, African key apples, passion fruit, sapote and cherimoyas.

Sherrill Orchards: This is one of the bigger growers at the market. Between the family farm in Arvin and the home farm in San Diego, Donna Sherrill works more than 200 acres--mostly apples, peaches and pears. She also makes cider that she presses from a mix of the more than 32 varieties of apples she grows. Sherrill also claims the extra ripeness she can get for market customers is crucial: “We pick our Granny Smiths two (percentage) points higher in sugar than what you can get most places. That makes it almost a different apple.”

Polito Family Farms: This is the place for citrus fruit. At Bob Polito’s farm in northern San Diego County, he grows oranges (Valencia, navel and blood); grapefruit (Star Ruby, Oro Blanco and Melo Gold); lemons (Eureka and Meyer); mandarins (Satsuma, Clementine and Lee); and Berris limes.

Seaside Banana Garden: By now, many people have heard of Doug Richardson’s Seaside Banana Garden just south of Santa Barbara--it’s the largest in the country. With his trees now back in full production after the disastrous freeze of 1990, Richardson is back with his fabulous bananas--picked nearly ripe and bursting with flavor. This time of year, depending on what he feels is ready, he may have Brazilian (also called Hawaiian apple); Manzano, Cardaba, Mysore (also called ladyfinger), Enano Gigante and ice cream bananas. Ever the missionary, he also sells bare-root banana plants. “West L.A. and Santa Monica in particular are just excellent for banana growing,” he says.

Tutti Frutti Farms: The Jackpot tomatoes from Tutti Frutti were--by unanimous acclaim--the best tomatoes from the farmers market the week we tasted them in The Times Test Kitchen. With a vibrant, complex flavor, they simply left everything in the dust. Owner Chris Cadwell says it’s a combination of variety, sandy soil, regular feedings with fish emulsion and careful watering by drip irrigation that give his tomatoes their flavor. He also grows onions, garlic, shallots, peppers, eggplants and a wide range of herbs and greens.

Circle C Ranch: Think the cherries are good here? Check out the line of people standing 10 to 15 deep in order to pay up to $4.50 a pound for them. They’ve got 20 kinds--including difficult-to-find morellos and sours--as well as apricots, lady apples, yellow plums and white and O’Henry peaches.

More Growers: T & D Willey Farms has organically grown sunburst squash, two kinds of eggplant and--right now--scarlet-hulled shell peas, as well as red rose, white rose and Yukon gold potatoes in both regular and creamer sizes. At Beylik Farms, the peppers (serrano, Thai, Hungarian, jalapeno, Anaheim, paprika and dark Italian red and yellow bells) and tomatoes are all hydroponically grown. Michael Abelman’s Fairview Garden Farms has good organic vegetables.

Because of the climate at its location near Lompoc, Green Farms has asparagus almost all year-round and--right now--beautiful gold and regular baby zucchini. Stop at Regier Farms for O’Henry peaches. Elmer Lehman also has really good peaches and tomatoes, and Sanders Organic Produce sells some of the best organically grown melons.

For berries--depending on the season--look to Nakamura Berry Farms for strawberries, to Wilson Gardens, Pudwill and Harry’s Berries for raspberries, blackberries and--in season--boysenberries.

There’s seafood at the market as well: at De’s Fresh Seafood, De Gorgita sells Santa Barbara spot prawns, ridgeback shrimp, white sea bass, halibut, shark, all caught by her husband, Junior--the fisherman on the Bank of America ads. George Yementz catches everything by hook-and-line, no netting. And at Ecomar, you can buy farm-raised mussels and barnacles from near Santa Barbara.

Santa Monica Farmers’ Market, Second Street and Arizona Avenue. Wednesdays from 9:30 a.m. to 3 p.m., year-round. For more information, call market manager Laura Avery, (310) 458-8712. caption