Persimmonous

Whenever guests are in town, I always take them to one of my favorite San Francisco spots: the Saturday morning Farmers Market at the Ferry Building.  Not only is the market beautiful - right on the water with an unreal view of the often fog-frosted Bay Bridge, bursting with color thanks to the plethora of fresh fruits and vegetables, and dotted with San Francisco's fit and chic citizens post early morning run, bike, or swim in the Bay - it also offers an unparalleled free sampling of the market's finest goods.  Enough that if taken advantage of properly, you can skip breakfast.  And sometimes lunch.

I was lucky enough to have my absolute best friend from college and her fabulous boyfriend in town for the weekend.  I often have the honor of being their third wheel and I love every second - they both spoil me rotten.  After casually mentioning I wanted some flowers for my apartment (as tough as it is, I've killed a few orchids over the past couple months and my home is lonely without plant life), they purchased this unreal bouquet of Dahlias for me.  We got 5 bunches for $20.  Being a bit boring and traditional, I wanted to go for one uniform color, but the two of them convinced me otherwise and separately picked out two different colors each to go with my original bright red pick.  While they made their selections, I bit my tongue nervous about the final product, but I do think it turned out to be a very ceremonious fall mix. 

In addition to my flowers, we did some damage in the free samples department.  We're in the final weeks of stone fruit season and the three of us went to town finding our favorite variety.  After each having approximately 1 peach, 2 pluots, 1 plum, and 1/2 a nectarine in complimentary samples, the Flavor Grenade (bottom fruit below) won our hearts.

We then moved onto the market's known little treasure: G.L. Alfieri's Almond Brittle.  Usually samples consist of one generous piece, but this particular morning the sample giver was dishing out handfuls of the brown gold. 

As we enjoyed our sugar high, we moved on to try fuji apples, granny smith apples, asian pears, bartlett pears, early girl tomatoes, extra sweet orange cherry tomatoes, roma tomatoes, mission fig jam, boysenberry jam, apricot jam, roasted garlic hummus, chimichurri sauce with pita chips, babaganoush, falafel, Point Reyes blue cheese, caprichosa cheese, Cowgirl Creamery goat cheese, white truffle salt, lemon olive oil drizzled on a crunchy baguette, freshly-made samosas with mint mango chutney, and juicy grapefruits.  My partners in crime also treated themselves to a sampling of freshly shucked oysters which they slurped with all kinds of grace and elegance.

I didn't think the morning could get any better.  

BUT THEN - I saw him out of the corner of my eye just a few stands away.  It had been months since I'd seen him last.  December 30th, 2010: we were traveling to Mexico together to celebrate New Years.  We knew getting him into the country was going to be tricky but we attempted anyway.  When border patrol caught him, I pleaded, begged, implored them to make an exception, but my efforts were to no avail.  We said good-bye and parted ways.

He looked even better than I remembered.  His golden skin was almost glistening in the San Francisco sun.  He looked healthy and young.  I could not wait to take a bite. :) 

It was my long lost love - the persimmon - finally back in season on the West Coast.  For those of you unfamiliar with this gift from the heavens (the tree genus name Diospyros means "food of the gods" in ancient Greek), the persimmon is a sweet fruit best consumed raw just like an apple. 

In addition to being ridiculously delicious, this fruit packs high levels of dietary fiber, phenolic compounds, vitamin C, beta carotene, potassium, magnesium, calcium, iron and manganese. It is also believed to reduce the risk of heart attacks and improve one's lipid metabolism – the way the body copes with fat. 

I am not sure my sampling buddies experienced the same love at first taste I did upon my introduction to the persimmon, but they did seem to approve of our relationship, albeit its fleeting nature (sadly the fruit is only in season mid-October to late December). 

xoxo

KK