Queen Calafia’s Call of Summer

Queen Califia, from The Room of the Dons mural, Mark Hopkins Hotel, San Francisco

Cross the desert, past the siguaros, who raise crooked arms in salute, forever at attention, and the prickly pears, who wear their violet and amber blossoms tucked in like corsages. Or journey south from the grimacing cliffs of the Pacific Northwest, where redwoods stretch into waves of fog to tether the clouds to the earth. Even sail across the Pacific, where tropic trade winds sing the tortoises to sleep and coconut trees whisper good night. California beckons, echoing with the call of Queen Calafia to her legions of Amazonian women.

California, it would seem, was named after a hypnotic island popularized in a 16^th-century Spanish novel

A citrus farmer at the Beverly Hills Farmers’ Market

Las Sergas de Espandian. So beautiful and fertile was this stretch of land, that early explorers mistook it for a place of legend and myth. California still strikes me as such and happening upon a summer’s farmers’ market lays all of the evidence for such a belief out in a spread of plenty. A farmers’ market’s charm relies on a careful balance between actual produce vendors, ready-to-eat stations (to snack on while you shop), specialty booths (be it bison filets or baskets of fungus), and hippy dippy entertainment like a Brazilian timbale band or, ideally, a drag cover band of Creedence Clearwater Revival called Proud Mary.  The Beverly Hills Farmers Market crams all of these (except for the cover band) into a stretch of Civic Center Drive adjacent to the deliciously deco Civic Hallevery Sunday morning.

Stand-out finds this time of year include several stone fruit vendors, breads and pastries from two bakeries, sprouted legumes, and fresh goat cheese. Gorgeous plants, including plumaria and fuchsia, are offered up, as well as a couple of cut flower vendors with bunches for $5 or less. Pick up a jar of kimchee, spicy chutney, or bottle of small batch olive oil to round out your pantry and a dozen free-range eggs and you’ll have no need for Pavilions or Whole Foods save for a bag of rice and a sixer of beer. Each week we load up Ronin’s stroller – the basket below brimming with tomatoes, bags of peaches and nectarines and lemons hanging off either side of the handlebars, and a market bag of pretzel rolls tied to the center – until she resembles a tiny cowgirl driving her cargo-laden burro.

Here are a few of my favorites:

Kenter Canyon Farm Greens

• Kenter Canyon Farms sells the largest assortment of greens so newly-picked that a bag has lasted two weeks in the fridge without wilting. Greens and a wide range of herbs are all available to mix and match.  Their Spicy Mix tosses in arugula with the usual suspects for a bit more bite that can stand up to the creamiest of dressings or the sweetness of fruit. Grab a handful of edible carnations or posies to add a wonderland sparkle to your next salad or a bunch of lavender to scent your drawers (in a muslin bag) or add a sweet perfume to humdrum sugar.

• Pluck a toothpick from the box, study the options and spear the pale sunset orange flesh of a peach. Then take a bite and smile as the juice trails a sticky ride down your chin. You’ve just eaten summer. Honey Crisp fruit farmers proudly display a range of samples – yellow and white peaches and nectarines, pluots and plums – knowing that their stone fruits’ flavor yells louder than any market barker.  Beneath the expected sweetness of these pin-ups of the fruit world, expect to find vanilla underpinnings and grassy legs.

Frank and his avocados

• I picture Keiko and Frank of Westfield Farms rising with the first golden rays of sun to weave hand-in-hand between a grove of avocado trees. She whispers, Good Morning to each one, cradling the green and black-skinned fruit in her warm palms. He shines their skins on his shirtsleeve and nestles each one into a bentwood basket, tucking it in for the long and bumpy road to the market.  They sort out their brood by days to ripen and can answer any question about this finest of California crops. Together, they’ve introduced us to a world beyond the mighty Haas. Our favorite remains the huge, softball-sized Zutanos – nutty and thin-skinned with a firm fruit, although the Walter Holes add a pleasing bite to a salad with their slightly bitter, edible skins.  You’ll know their booth as it is one long stall of avocados, without other vegetable frippery frap to clutter up the place.

• Nothing stirs up a hunger like dodging strollers and hand carts while hunting for the perfect peach. Luckily, the chile-swimming scent of Mis Padres grabs you by the nostrils and pulls you through the crowd to the end of the market with a big-bellied pay-off of griddle-sizzling chilequiles. Mike starts by frying chips on his flat top and then heaping on salsa, cilantro, and jack cheese.  Top it off with a dose of the house-made hot sauce and the heat will get your toes tingling for the walk back home.

Ronin loving the Beverly Hills Farmers’ Market