The Best Gourmet and Farmers Markets
By Andrew Collins

In recent years, a new style of traveler has emerged: the food tourist. If you're not one yourself, you've probably at least met one of these culinary-obsessed creatures who think nothing of whiling away an afternoon strolling through haute grocery stores, hovering over fresh produce at farm stands, and planning entire vacations based on nothing more than where to sample the best crab cakes or creme brulee. Indeed, certain farmers and gourmet food markets have become bona fide tourist attractions, not to mention great places to squeeze melons with cute fellow foodies.

Here's a sampling of some of the best such markets around, from the vaunted food stalls of Philadelphia and New Orleans to the esteemed produce purveyors of Seattle and San Francisco. So grab your shopping list and get started!

Ferry Terminal Building, San Francisco, California
If you consider grazing to be a favorite pastime, set aside plenty of time to explore downtown San Francisco's Ferry Terminal Building, which has a slew of great restaurants and food shops. The gorgeously restored building, a former ferry terminal that dates to 1898, overlooks San Francisco Bay. Inside, you'll find merchants selling a dizzying variety of mouthwatering morsels, including wines, olive oil, sausages, coffee and tea, sweets - just about anything that makes your taste buds tingle can be found here. Behind the building, there's also a farmers market on Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday. The entire facility is like a hands-on museum of food, and what better place for such a shrine than San Francisco?

Memorable foods and vendors: Acme Bread (they bake divine baguettes); Cowgirl Creamery's Artisan Cheese Shop (try the Humboldt Fog goat cheese); Hog Island Oyster Company (nosh on succulent bivalves on the half-shell); Ciao Bella Gelato (sample coconut-lemongrass sorbetto and chocolate-jalapeno gelato); Scharffen Berger Chocolate Maker (for heavenly semisweet mocha squares); Taylor's Refresher (fantastic ahi tuna burgers and garlic fries).

Crescent City Farmers Market, New Orleans, Louisiana
Hurricane Katrina shut it down temporarily, but the fabulous Crescent City Farmers Market is back and doing extremely well, albeit with a limited presence as of March 2006. The market is normally held four times a week at different locations around town and features a phenomenal roster of vendors as well as guest chefs from many of the Big Easy's top restaurants. Two of the market venues, the Mid-City locale (which operates on Thursdays) and the French Quarter locale (which operates on Wednesdays) were still recovering from hurricane damage as of this writing but are expected to open again soon. In the meantime, you can currently partake of this great foodie event on Saturdays in the Warehouse District (700 Magazine Street) and on Tuesdays at Uptown Square (200 Broadway Street, near Audubon Park). Farmers markets have been an important way of life in New Orleans since the French and Spanish governed the city in the 18th century, and they remain just as vibrant to this day.

Memorable foods and vendors: Angel's (homemade pralines); Fair Pop Hill Farm (heirloom tomatoes and satsumas - the latter is a local delicacy similar to a mandarin orange); Dona Blanca Dairy (fine cheeses); La Spiga (a woman-owned artisanal bakery known for blueberry crisps and great cookies); The Pie Lady (sweet potato, pecan, and pumpkin pies); Smith's (soft- and hard-shell crabs); Roko's (oysters); Three Brothers (fig preserves and molasses).
Continue to page 2>>>

Page 1 of 3