It's not about the boats.

Despite living in the Bay Area for over twenty years, extolling the amazing local food scene, and being an avid eater, I'd never been to one of the most lauded places in the foodie world - The San Francisco Ferry Building. I've got plenty of excuses - the primary one being that their infamous farmer's market happens at the same time as my local one, and I've got my loyalties - but honestly, with the Ferry Building being a few blocks away from the first SF bart stop, making it about a 15 minute trip from Oakland, I really should have been here sooner.

I went with one of my favorite foodie/cat ladies, Robyn, with whom I spent all last summer attending street food gatherings, apricot and peach picking, and stuffing sausage. This summer our time together has been truncated by my Philadelphia residency, so we've been trying to fit all our gorging into this scant two-week period. We made a lot of headway at the Ferry Building.

One of our first stops was Cowgirl Creamery's permanent stand. Cowgirl Creamery is the creator of some of my favorite cheese, including the intensely creamy, rich Mt. Tam, their triple-cream. I'll probably do an entire post about cheese later, since it's been such a huge part of this trip, but our Cowgirl Creamery cheese monger (in the red hat) was fantastic and very patient with us as we took photos, sampled cheeses, and discussed the benefits of dating a cheese man.

The Ferry Building, in its most recent incarnation, is less of a ferry terminal and more of a marketplace for elite, Bay Area foodie shops. It's on the tourist circuit, because of its location, but it clearly caters to those educated about the local food scene. Most of the restaurants and cafés use ingredients from the other market vendors, which is a lovely form of mutuality, advertising, and deliciousness.

We bought some walnut-cranberry bread from Acme, which has stores and distributors all over the Bay Area, but originate from Berkeley. We each got a truffle (by which I mean, a small piece of chocolate) from Recchiutti, which seemed to be fairly standard high-quality chocolates. We agonized over beans at the Village Market, a grocer that sells canned, dried, and preserved things. We admired the truffles (by which I mean, a small piece of fungus) at Far West Fungi, and discussed the local mushrooming scene, which has been around at least since my father first arrived in San Francisco, went camping with his friends, ran out of food, and were taught mushroom hunting by a strange man in the woods who turned out to be a major deal in the wild mushroom collecting circles.

By this time, all the food we were eating was making us hungry, so we stopped by Frog Hollow Farm to get some of their notorious peaches in the form of a small lunch.

These peaches, really, they were amazing. The Cal Reds particularly. The best peaches I have ever eaten. The best texture, the best taste, the best juiciness, the best color, the best fuzz. All of it.

 Frog Hollow's market stand has a selection of pastries, fruits, coffee, and small lunch items to choose from. We, of course, got a bag of peaches for later, and then were tempted by the pastries and lunch menu.

I ordered the peach bruschetta, which is the best bruschetta I've ever had, and a strong contender for the best foodthing ever.

Their fromage blanc is from Cowgirl Creamery (I identified it just by taste, which made me feel sort of awesome and a lot dorky. I am a supreme cheese nerd.) and is a mild, fresh, creamy cheese. For some additional flavor, they whip in some of their Frog Hollow olive oil and chopped walnuts to make a really fantastic spread that they put over toasted bread (I think from Acme). They top it with thick slices of fresh peach, with a little pepper over the top.

Here, just look at it. It's delightful.

This wasn't just the best part of the Ferry Building, it might be the best part of my life.

As delicious as the peach bruschetta was, it wasn't quite an entire meal. So we found the empanada guy, and each got a flaky, wonderful pocket of goodness. Mine was filled with mushrooms from Far West Fungi; Robyn's had grass-fed beef from Prather Ranch, another Ferry Building vendor.

One of the primary reasons for our visit was to check out Boccalone, specifically to get some of their nduja - a spreadable sausage.

There's just something about pork that's so photogenic.

I bought a cone full of thinly sliced meats to snack on, which was beautiful and tasty. It's a little funny to see meat served in such a manner, but well worth the novelty.

After the cone of meat, we headed back to the East Bay with our bounty. Along the way we picked up another foodie/cat lady friend, then we sat in the sun in my parents' backyard and had a late lunch/tea/pre-dinner.

The spread:

Walnut-cranberry bread from Acme; Cowgirl Creamery's Pierce Pt. and Bijou, both cheeses bought from Cowgirl Creamery; nduja from Boccalone Salumeria; Cal Red peaches from Frog Hollow; Sicilian pistachios in honey, purchased from the Village Market; and Early Girl tomatoes from Robyn's fridge.

A perfect day of foodie decadence.

Garlic Scape Pesto

I first ran into these beautiful, curly stems in a friend's CSA that I was picking up while she was on vacation. Another friend and I tried them raw, having no idea what they were, and came away smelling strongly of garlic. Garlic scapes, the stalk and seed of the garlic bulb, can be used just like garlic, although they have a fresher, greener taste, and as the temperature heats up they have made a big showing in my local farmers' markets. In fact, one farmer gave me a giant double handful for free, grabbed from a huge box of the curvy green stalks. And faced with a giant heap of the buggers, I decided that I needed to do something a little more drastic than throwing them in my eggs.
So I went to the internet, and found that others had had a similar dilemma, and most seemed to solve it by linking to this intense pesto recipe from Dorie Greenspan. A simple idea: instead of basil, use garlic scapes!

As I sat down with my heap of scapes, I realized that while the recipe called for about ten stems, the pile I was confronting had about fifty. So I upped the amounts a bit, and hoped the garlic wouldn't overwhelm the other flavors completely.

Half a pound of walnuts, toasted.

Half a pound of parmesan cheese and a whole lot of olive oil (I stopped pouring when the texture seemed right).

We went to Claudio's, the local Italian cheese wonderland, to get the parmesan (and a few other things, since I have no self restraint when it comes to cheeses), and when the cheese monger heard what we were making, we were treated to a story about the garlic-y Italian sisters he and his friend once dated.

I put a little too much in my mouth the first time I tried the pesto - it's pretty intense right out of the food processor. But not in a bad way.

And the color is lovely.

It was delicious. But, as the fellow at Claudio's said, not a first-date kind of meal.