Petaluma Markets

Regarding that mandatory registration of drones the Treasury Department is planning, no problem. To avoid the hassles of registration, all you’ll have to do is mount a gun on your drone and assert your second amendment rights.

I’ll start my coverage of Petaluma markets by saying that the closest supermarket to my apartment is Lucky, but i popped in there and was shocked to find that Clover milk cost far more than i’d seen anywhere else.  Deal breaker.  The only thing i can project buying there is the Vanilla Light Frappucino, which i just love cut with an equal amount of fresh coffee and which comes in bottles that i need for my chocolate sauce.

I also stopped in at Sprouts Farmers Market at 401 Kenilworth Drive and found it chilled to perfection and beautiful.  I was kinda hoping it would be Petaluma’s equivalent of Rainbow Grocery in San Francisco.  Alas, even though it’s tightly focused on organic and natural foods, it’s a national chain that’s not a patch on Rainbow, so i won’t be going there often.

My favorite supermarket so far is the Petaluma Market.  It’s locally owned and has pretty much everything i need, including the best prices i’ve found for Clover milk, over fifty cents a half gallon less than Lucky.

So much for the supermarkets, how ’bout the farmers’ markets?  Well, there are two, but candor mandates mentioning that neither is a patch on those i frequented in San Francisco.  Still, both have a number of vendors with a moderate range of produce that’s sometimes merely adequate but often quite good.

The Petaluma East Side Farmers’ Market at 501 N. McDowell is open year round on Tuesdays 10 – 1:30.  Getting there is an interesting ride because most of it is on the Lynch Creek Trail.  I live directly west of the second “a” in “Petaluma River” on the above linked map, and to get to the market i simply ride south to Payran Street, go east over the Payran Street bridge, turn immediately north onto the trail and follow it north under the freeway to McDowell Street.  The market is about three blocks west.

The Petaluma Farmers’ Market at Walnut Park, corner 4th and D Streets, is open Saturdays 2 – 5:30 May-November.

This market is the home of my favorite local vendor,  Twin Dog Farms, which sells peppers.  What’s so special about that, you ask?  Well, he roasts them to order for you.

Another favorite vendor at this market is Schletewitz, from whom i’ve been buying since 1992, when Eric Schletewitz was a teenage farm boy and threw a few bags of his father’s oranges into the back of his pickup truck and drove to the San Mateo Farmers’ Market at Fashion Island to see if he could sell some.

He sold ’em all, which was no surprise to me considering that his oranges were as delicious as he was as charming, and this venture turned into his setting up booths at farmers’ markets all over the Bay Area.  I was astonished and delighted to see them as far north as Petaluma.

My other favorite vendor at this market is Retrograde Roasters, a tiny two person operation out of Santa Rosa that sources its beans from Oakland’s legendary Sweet Maria’s, roasts them in their kitchen, and peddles them in farmers’ markets around Santa Rosa.  Casey Lanski and Danielle Connor are delightful people and their coffee is delicious.