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Quaint. That’s the word I’d use to describe the Culver City Farmer’s Market. It is slightly smaller than if Luxembourg and the Gaza Strip gave birth to a street. It occupies less than a block on Main Street between Venice and Culver. I’ve worked in Culver City for four months now, and I never really saw it.

The answer is obvious: it is at the dumbest time you could imagine.

“How,” ask the managers who plan the farmer’s market, “should we choose a time to ensure the least amount of foot traffic and exposure?”

“How about the mitigating hours between lunch and the time everyone gets out of work…say, 2pm to 7pm.”

“Brilliant idea! Someone could potentially work years in Culver City, and never actually see us.”

“Stealth, sir. Its the new marketing trend.”

Everyone was wrong where I work. It doesn’t start at 2pm, that is the setup time. It starts at 3pm. I promise to dig deeper into this. There must be some archaic Culver City ordinance that prohibits religious ceremonies from occurring before 3pm on a weekday, and because some bread vendor bakes his pretzels in the shape of a cross they were legally prohibited from calling themselves a secular farmer’s market. I don’t know.

Yet, I went there for the first time yesterday, and for its tiny size there is a dense offering of good food. Certainly, it is dwarfed by the Hollywood and Santa Monica juggernauts, but I could see it being a great convenience market for all the studio drones to pick up a few things while on late, late, late lunch…or happy hour.

One thing I like about this farmer’s market is that it is not just relegated to strictly produce, there is a Hawaiian grilled chicken stand where the smoke curls around and tugs you by the nostrils. At the very end is a cheese purveyor with a fine variety of artisan cheese that, granted, I could get at Whole Foods…but sometimes the venue adds mytique and richness to food. There is a meat and sausage maker, a seafood monger, and a couple of nut guys.

There are also the requisite hippie products like natural soaps, cleansers and candles. Normally I don’t go for the woodstock contingent, but I like the offbeat scents that local providers can come up with.

Comprising the remaining 50% are the produce farmers, bringing their seasonal best to the table. Colors look vibrant, lettuce appears crisp. Fruits are waxed to perfection. There were some great heirloom tomatoes, with their fantastic character. It reinforces my belief that heirlooms are poised to make a huge splash on the culinary landscape…despite their cretinous and loathsome deformities.

One unique item, the only thing I bought, was a pretzel baguette. I didn’t have the sense of forethought to actually remember the guy’s name because I would like to give him mention (when I’m eating, it never occurs to me I might be writing about it later). He has all manner of snacky breads, cakey cakes, sugar balls and cheesy dings. There were some great pretzel rolls that were erupting with cheddar cheese.

I bought the batard, and I had never seen a pretzel as large as a body pillow. Like a car driving on a Vermont highway in winter, it was liberally covered in rock salt. Fantastic! I love salt. He had a great variety of other baked goods, but I was trying to eat light.

Despite its awkward timing, it is so small you can really compress what would normally be a meandering hour long Sunday tour into fifteen minutes. You can eat [late] lunch and do some shopping all in one stroke. The other benefit to the farmer’s market is the vibrancy it brings to Main Street. All the shops spring to life, antique shops put out their furniture, shop owners stand outside to smoke and bitch…it really brings this sleepy stretch of road to life. If you need an asymmetrical haircut or misconceived dye job, the Beauty College right there. You can wait for your perm to set while gnawing on a fresh carrot or something.

Culver City Farmer’s Market
Main Street between Venice and Culver
Tuesdays, 3pm-7pm

By Zteve (see more of his posts). You can find more of Zteve's writing at his own website Gastrologica