Eggplants, eggplants!

October must be eggplant month at the Farmers Market. There are five in the top picture alone -- little round white ones, larger round green ones, small purple ovals, curvy, dull ones and shiny, almost black Japanese.
Here you see the thicker, classic Asian variety...
...and here a closer-up of the green and purple small ovals. What you don't see as many of are the classic Middle Eastern fat purple variety, because most of the vendors and most of the people buying eggplants at the Civic Center Sunday Farmers Market are Asians -- Hmong, Filipino, Chinese, Thai, Japanese. Lots of Russians come too and they seem to bargain the hardest. "How much?" "Two dollah bag." "Too much, too much, one dolla, one dolla." "No no, two dollah bag." "Too much, too much, one dolla twenty five." "No no."

These are jujubes. Not sure exactly what you do with jujubes but they are pretty to look at.

Civic Center Sunday and Wednesday Farmers Market, as well as the Allemany Saturday Market, have the same merchants more or less, and the same laid-back attitude, as is contrasted sharply by the Ferry Building Saturday and Thursday Markets, which are full of people who think their $10 carrot was sent down from God Herself. The Civic Center and Allemany vendors are into food, not art. As far as The Great Plotnik is concerned, if you want art go to MOMA. If you want to buy beautiful, inexpensive organic vegetables, fruit, herbs, seeds or plants, with a desire to turn them into a delicious dinner, come to Allemany or Civic Center. Not that there is anything intrinsically wrong with a $10 carrot or a $8 raspberry as long as you're lost in the Gobi Desert in the middle of August.