Santa Monica: Cream of the Crops

The Santa Monica farmers market, held Wednesdays, is the best in California, not only for the number and quality of the vendors, many of whom sell only there, but also for the savvy and camaraderie of its shoppers. Chefs with handcarts trade hot tips with homemakers as they scurry around scooping up special items from their favorite stands.

Last week, Kim and Clarence Blain, idiosyncratic enthusiasts who grow produce in Lake Hughes, sold Tamopan persimmons, an unusual variety that looks like Fuyu cinched tightly around the waist; it’s of the astringent type, ripe when soft. They had a few green figs with dark red, intensely flavored jam-like flesh, much sought after by aficionados as the season draws to a close, along with three varieties of quince, Pineapple, Orange and Smyrna.

Mike Cirone and his gang of surf rockers from San Luis Obispo had semilegendary Portugal quince, huge, lumpy fruit often depicted in early still-life paintings, and buttery D’Anjou pears, which sold out early. But their main deal was apples: sweet, crisp Splendor, a Tasmanian variety; classic Newtown Pippin; sweet-tart Braeburn; pale Yellow Bellflower, good for pies and sauce; and flavorful Gold Rush, like a Golden Delicious with a tart, winy edge.

Bill Coleman of Carpenteria displayed a museum of gorgeous vegetables and herbs: nine kinds of lettuce, cavalo nero, red mustard greens, fenugreek, fresh sorrel, fragrant lemon verbena and Persian mint. He also had exotic rose apples (little yellow fruits that taste of rose), Lemon Gold sapotes and purple passion fruit.

The next stall, Top Veg of Carson, sold shelled variegated lima beans, speckled pink and green. Vilma Causey of Briar Patch Farm had giant watermelon radishes, white on the outside, pink on the inside, from Kingsburg. Ed Munak brought excellent heirloom tomatoes from Paso Robles, including pale White Wonders, persimmons that could easily be mistaken for Fuyus and Green Zebras, the most flavorful of all, along with bright red-orange Cinderella cooking pumpkins.

David West had cauliflower mushrooms and chanterelles gathered in Northern California, dried porcini and beautiful pink and yellow cultivated oyster mushrooms. Bud Weisenberg brought fresh chestnuts from south of Temecula, while Scott Peacock of Dinuba sold fresh Manzanillo olives, much beloved by Mideastern and Mediterranean shoppers, who cure the olives themselves. In addition to their usual red and golden raspberries, Py and Randy Pudwill of Nipomo had freshly harvested green Chandler walnuts, more moist than the normal dried kind.

Truman and Betty Kennedy’s stand sold dried white nectarines and peaches so good they should be illegal. Robert Lower of Flying Disc Ranch of Thermal had the world’s most insanely luscious dates, rutab-stage organic Barhis so soft that eating one is like biting into a sugary cloud. Lower wryly calls them “wretched excess”; he prefers dry Deglet Noors, though he also has superb Dayri, Khadrawi, Zahidi and Halawi dates.

Santa Monica farmers market, Arizona Avenue and 2nd Street, Wednesday, 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.