The South Berkeley Farmers Market borders the edge between Oakland and Berkeley at Adeline and 63rd. While unassuming in appearance, this market takes up the median-separated parking spots lining Adeline and has all the essentials one needs in a practical, weekday-evening farmers market. Note: Check out my broiled stone fruit recipe below.
The “friends and family market”
The market peaks after it opens at 2 pm with a distinctive Berkeley feel (i.e., it trends older and is chock full of hippies). Shaped like a needle, most of the market is one lane with an island of vendors at the south end forming a loop. At the BART across the street, the trustifarians in a tent city run on solar panels walk over to buy a popsicle now and again when it’s hot.
The best thing about an evening market is it doubles as a community gathering space to dance, drink, and be merry for a few hours in between work and dinner. My fondest summer memories involve the habitual trips with friends to pick up an $8 bag of “party” wings and various vegetables at the local Wednesday market for our weekly grill night. The S Berkeley market has music performers, multiple food trucks, a grade-A bakery, and odds and ends such as massage therapists for that extra touch.
Once I’ve done a lap to see what’s out there, I start again focused on comparisons: price, quality, farm diversification, etc. To ensure I get the best food at the highest value, I’m only buying items I’ve noticed that will likely sell out early or are unique to a vendor (like gooseberries or squash blossoms) until my third lap.
While I try to hit as many vendors as possible, here some of my favorite stops:
Blossom Bluff Orchards
– Everyone has peaches, but not everyone has the full gamut of stone fruit including plums, pluots, peacotums, etc. Heads up, this vendor is stonecold-fruit seasonal and will disappear in fall until pomegranates and late season plums come back into season. Elephant Heart & Flavor King plums – $6
Riverdog Farms – This vendor at the south end has everything from pork to eggs to herbs to melons to gorgeous vegetables. When I finish my first lap here I try to not to go ahead and buy everything, so I give it a thorough look through to compare against the rest of the vendors on the lap back to the start. Canary Melon, Orange Fleshed Honeydew, & Basil – $7.50
Stepladder Creamery – Although billed as a creamery, they are so much more! They grow avocados and passionfruit; AND, they feed their imperfect avocados to pigs to make for the tastiest sustainable produced pork in town. Big Sur goat and cow milk triple cream – $8
Dirty Girl Produce – Excellent stop for early girl tomatoes by the case (1st and 2nd grade). So crazy delicious and not to be missed! 6 Early Girl tomatoes – $3.
Charred Plum with Feta
Cooking with fresh-picked fruit is simple. The less you do the better. I always loved grilling peaches in the summer months, and the delectable plums I found at the market inspired me to try something new. I did a quick google search and loved the idea of simple stone fruit with olive oil and cheese so off I was.
At first, I tried to cook 3 plums sliced in half face down in a small cast iron with ~2 tbsp butter for 5 minutes, but they cooked down quickly creating a plum butter sauce (delicious!) and some less than presentable plum halves. Enter the test kitchen. Turns out less butter is better.
When I tested this again I used less butter, but after 2 minutes of sloshing it around I poured out the excess to prevent burning of the butter and repeating last night’s mistakes.
After 2-3 minutes I checked the bottom and saw it was plenty charred so I took it off. Now wondering how much the butter adds compared to the charring heat alone I repeated the process after pouring out all of the butter except for a thin coating. After placing the plum on for 2 minutes it was ready. Note: a lot of steam came out during this process, but that’s just the water in the fruit not actual burning!
The buttered plum was warmer throughout and tasted delicious while the other was still cold past the charred outside (perfect for a summer dessert!!) and held truer to plum flavor with only mild caramelization. Both were delicious, but I have two more halves and I know how I’m going to cook them (~1 tbsp butter in total, lots of sloshing onto the sides).
Oh yeah, the last step is to drizzle feta (or any preferred soft cheese you can crumble somewhat), olive oil, and salt on top for a savory appetizer or dessert. Super simple and can be an appetizer, side, or dessert.
<3<3<3
Katie
Additional Pics from the Market:
