I finally made it to the big Santa Monica farmers market on the 3rd Street Promenade. Woohoo!

It was a beautiful, freakishly sunny December morning, exactly what I would expect out of L.A. I didn’t buy a lot because, well, I’m on vacation and actually live in San Francisco. But it was a great experience and I hope to make it back one day for their Wednesday market, which is apparently twice as big.

In a future post I will give all the details of how to navigate this particular market, including maps, parking info and what days not to go.

For now I will just say that if you are in the neighborhood it is definitely worth the trip. The pomelo I bought was by far the best I’ve had in this country (Thailand pomelos still win).

There were a bunch of things I would have loved to try if I could have brought them home with me.

Santa Monica purchases:

• Fuji apples
• Meyer lemons
• Pomelo
• Giant fuyu persimmon
• Empress dates
• Hydroponic baby bok choy

This past weekend I left my beloved San Francisco Ferry Plaza Farmers Market to visit my family in Southern California. I was really excited to feel the sun again and finally see the famous Santa Monica Farmers Market near the Santa Monica Pier and 3rd Street Promenade.

Their website said they were closed November 24, but since it was November 29 I thought I was good to go.

No such luck.

I guess they forgot to update their website from last year when November 24 was on a Saturday, because apparently the market is always closed the Saturday after Thanksgiving (something I learned from the visitors information booth once I got there).

But despite this brief let down, I was able to find another farmers market in Santa Monica at Virginia Park.

To my delight, the Virginia Park Farmers Market had a fantastic selection and was a pleasure to shop at. All the expected autumn delicacies were there–the parsnips and sunchokes were even sitting right next to each other at Weiser Family Farms. We also found vendors selling fresh eggs, cheese, chicken, duck and grass-fed beef.

Many of these items are not common to your typical grocery store, so Santa Monica residents should feel very lucky to have these offerings available to them.

One notable difference between the San Francisco market and the Santa Monica market is that tomatoes, summer squash and berries (summer produce) are still available down south. If you have been following this blog you know that these items have been missing from San Francisco for many weeks.

There were also some exotic ingredients at the Santa Monica market, like lemongrass and assorted guava fruit.

Here is what we purchased from the Virginia Park market:

• Persimmons
• Fresh walnuts
• Brussels sprouts
• Kohlrabe
• Sunchokes
• Various potatoes



• Thyme
• Oregano
• Savory
• Lily’s eggs
• Heirloom tomatoes
• Leeks
• Candy-stripe and golden beets