Caramel Corn to Basil

The Oakland Farmer's Market at Jack London Square

By Peggy Vincent

Finally we strolled far enough away from the caramel corn stand that the fragrance faded and gave way to an equally wonderful aroma coming from several mountains of fresh basil, clusters so huge that a 2-year-old completely disappeared behind the bunch he carried. Near the basil, eggplants and tomatoes from Sebastopol tumbled from wicker baskets, bottles of flavored olive oils from Santa Rosa balanced in earthquake-defying pyramids, sausages from Bruce Aidell's Berkeley company simmered in warming trays and rainbow-colored pasta from Monterey tangled in half-pound heaps. I stood in one spot, looked around, and saw ... dinner!

Having worked our way up one side of the market, we came to the southern end of the market. The children raced to an old, weathered log cabin and pushed their faces through the windows of the one-room log cabin that Jack London lived in during his years of prospecting in the Yukon. As Oakland was his hometown, a literary society moved the rustic cabin to this location many years ago, and a bronze statue of him stands nearby, with a quote:

I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time. I would rather be ashes than dust.

Apparently he meant what he said. He died in 1916 at age 40 from kidney failure, perhaps brought on by a life of excess.

Heading back in the opposite direction, we sipped freshly pressed apple juice as we wended our way past stands of more sizes, colors and shapes of potatoes than I tought possible. Some looked like little brown marbles; others resembled the fat thumbs of longshoremen. Some were purple; others were white, yellow or brown. Next came peppers, even striped ones, as bright as Christmas lights, then breads from 10 different countries and finally smoked and frozen fish from Monterey Bay. Huge, long-stemmed strawberries begged to be dipped into chocolate. I bought one for my niece, and she spent the rest of the morning with a milk chocolate smudge on the end of her nose.

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