Sonoma and Occidental Farmers' Markets

Most people have vacations and go camping, visit new cities, beaches. I go to farmers' market. At least that's what I did on Friday.

First I went to the farmers' market in Sonoma, right off the tree lined square. The market is in a gravel paved parking lot, one row of farmers and vendors. It's an old town market without polish. Character outweighs the dust however.

There was a young man selling fish from the tailgate of his Chevy truck. He was unimpressed that a guy had written a book called Bottomfeeder that I mentioned he might be interested in. (I know. I couldn't help it.)

I squeezed and smelled succulents per a hand lettered sign that were potted in everything but the kitchen sink. Each one, one of a kind. Then in conversation with a woman selling worm tea, she explained the way I make worm tea doesn't leach out the worm urine, which her process does. Urine? Worms have urine? I'm still thinking about that.

I moved on and caused a stir buying four pounds of jalapenos. And had I been going home I would have bought a box of the prettiest Petaluma strawberries I've seen all year, but I resisted. I visited with a young woman selling garden roses from her uncle's ranch near Bennett Valley. Over fragrant buckets of hand gathered bouquets we shared flower names back and forth, english phlox, butterfly bush. Echinacea, godetia.

There was a mandatory baker with bread and scones. Women making drip coffee by the cup. There was one farm truck, from Fresno I think, that I see at every market. The woman selling is always smiling. I was right at home.

Traveling back roads I was astonished at the wine country's far reaching monoculture; from Napa, Sonoma, to Petaluma, Penngrove. There were endless rolling hills of vineyards. A mass patchwork quilt of land in emerald green and golden that would be called brown anywhere but California. "This used to be empty fields," I kept saying.

Further west the vineyards disappeared and I drove through redwoods to Occidental and a late afternoon market. This was the foodshed of my great grandparents and it's still primarily open land, people living far apart, small farmers, a smaller town.

This was a local market where everyone knew each others name. Where no one sold a lot but what they sold was valuable because of it. I bought rainbow carrots from young men with dreadlocks, blackberries picked that morning. I drank juice poured from a mason jar made with nettles, plums and rose geranium. And I went back for seconds.

A young woman displayed a variety of red potatoes I'd never heard of. There were white agrostema and buckets of sunflowers that told stories. There was a man with shiny skin selling baskets in woven colors of which I thought I should bring one of each home. And a lavender lemonade stand run by three giggling girls that seemed to spill more than they sold.

The trash cans were just that, trash cans. No fancy recycling with monitors testing on what could and could not be recycled. Only a dented lid to be lifted, trash deposited, lid replaced. Recycling either happened because you took responsibility, or it didn't.

This was a town where the hydrangeas grew blue, summer squash grew quickly and time left alone. I sat at a picnic table, petted a dog, admired a baby, laughed with a local. I ate blackberries and listened to the music.

Vacations should always be this good, I thought.