An elderly woman shuffling through the closing farmers market says she will talk to God on our behalf.


“Both for one [price],” she says with an accent. “I will pray for you.”


Farmer Jamie Collins isn’t honored.


“The broccolini is already [discounted at] $1.50 a bunch – look at all those individual cuts,” she says. “Just take it.”


By joining Serendipity Farms’ market team for a Sunday that would cross four San Francisco markets, I was hoping to mine insights that can only come from embedding. But I didn't expect a lady to evoke the Lord for a price break. For Collins, though, this isn’t surprising.


“Sometimes it’s frustrating how much people diminish the work that goes in,” she says. “That’s why I tried to show her it took some serious effort to harvest it.”


And a serious effort to get it here. The big 9:30am-1:30pm Fort Mason Farmers Market on S.F. Bay starts closer to 4am in Aromas. That’s when and where we roll out of bed and board the box truck, which was filled to the gills with tables, tents and dinosaur kale.


Sunrise was spilling pink lemonade pastels on the sky when we reached the first stop, Glen Park, where Collins, her sweetie Avtonom Ordjonikidze and I unload a complete assembly of displays, tomatoes, fresh greens, squashes, lemonade and more for her arriving neighborhood employee to sell.


The many stops speak to the reality of a hustling “marketeer”: For now, only by traveling far and hitting so many spots can this farmer make it work. Salinas’ Rio de Parras, a family operation I saw at Fort Mason’s market, does 18 markets plus a CSA. Hollister’s Swank Farms was there. They do 14 a weekend.


“You can’t be rich as a farmer,” Collins says, “unless you are land wealthy.”


Off-loading Inner Sunset takes only 20 minutes; next up is Divisadero. Along the way I learn the truck and market proximity help Collins travel. But there are less flattering reasons that send her to S.F. twice a week rather than Monterey County. A glut of competing markets around her hometown means a less robust lineup and fewer buyers. Opaque rationale for who gets into markets means Collins has received no reason why she can’t walk produce from her farm to a Carmel market. She could make her nut by going to six markets in as many days, but would have no time to harvest. “Local” and “farmers markets” then, don’t always click.


At Fort Mason I arrange the most striking rainbow of German green, yellow brandywine and pink Ponderosa tomatoes I can. I’m surprised how much pride I take. Bigger surprises: How well-represented Monterey is, and how much our vendors beef our local marketgoers. 


Happy Boy Farms’ Donka Hardy says at Monterey Marketplace on Tuesdays, the headache of navigating the poorly directed Alvarado and ornery customers that haggle repel her.


“It’s almost not worth it,” she says.


Three different vendors echo the sentiment. A Swank seller is more succinct. “Es mucho mejor aquí [in S.F.],” he says.


“People are really into your stuff here,” adds his colleague. “More conscious.” I’m really into slanging bags of baby spinach (“three bags of greens for $5, baby!”), and taking breaks to try yellow watermelon, orange cauliflower and cantaloupe salsa at Swank and the scallop buns at Happy Dumplings. Most of all, though, I’m into the bartering between vendors.


Melons and citrus fly. Happy Boy gives everyone salad. Collins comes home with oranges, grapes, Asian pears, peaches and pork ribs, some of which goes in her CSA (www.serendipityorganic.com for 2012).


She also had enough to pay her workers and sock some away for plants. Nevertheless, come winter purchases, end-of-year accounting and market-dulling rains, she has to seek out odd jobs.


Seems to me that a local farmer should be able to do OK at local spots. Collins’ friend, author Eric Schlosser (Fast Food Nation), for one, is with me.


“Local farmers markets,” he says, “should be for local farmers.”


So maybe it’s time to hold that little old lady to her prayer pledge. If we can’t make things work for farmers like this, we're gonna need them. 


QUICK BITES


• Wine whisperer Thomas Perez is absconding the throne as grape-juice director for David Fink’s L’Auberge-Cantinetta Luca dynasty not long after Aubergine (624-8578) cracked Zagat’s list of top five “Bay Area” restaurants, a historic first. He’s bubbly at the prospect of more time to make wine under his Kristi Lynn label – with Spanish Tempranillo, Californian and Oregonian Pinot, among other varietals. “It’s an exciting time,” he says. He’ll still be based locally, where I will be prepared to pounce on whatever wines he comes up with, particularly the Pinot Blanc-Pinot Gris-Riesling blend he’s planning. More on the blog.


• Though its official grand opening syncs with Thanksgiving, Holman Ranch opened its tasting room this week. That means there’s a nice lineup of small-batch winemakers assembled in one modest Carmel Valley strip mall: Parsonage (659-7322), Joyce (659-0312), Chesebro (238-7225) and now Holman. Look for a similarly stuffed lineup of events there, from the opening’s music, demos, Santa showings and tastes Nov. 26-27 to a Lulu’s chocolate-wine pairing session with Scott Lund Dec. 8 to a Tony Baker demo-benefit Dec. 11.


• Yes: $15 pre-sale rate for a 6-9:30pm Monday, Nov. 7, tequila tasting at Lopez Restaurante y Cantina (324-4260), with Avion, Partida, Tequila Tenoso, Tequila Alerete all repped, plus snacks, is a bargain.


• Truth in advertising: A demo with The Raw Express Chef Patti Stevens will explore healthier Turkey Day techniques 11am-12:30pm Nov. 5 at Carmel Kitchen and Baths. It’s called “A Fresh Spin on Thanksgiving,” $15, 624-4667. 


• Study at the apron of Cal Stamenov, Ben Spungin, Mark Buzan and Susanna Gamble as they talk the art of holiday snacks, desserts, wines and flowers (respectively) and Bernardus lunch flows things like homemade brioche, whole roasted herb chicken and black truffle stuffing 1-3pm Saturday, Nov. 12. $85 inclusive, 658-3550.


• “As long as there’s a few farmers,” Willie Nelson says, “we’ll keep fighting for them.”