City Slicker Farms

"I've been barbecuing all my life," said Ron Cain as he perused collards at a recent Saturday farm stand at Union Plaza Park, "but the business I've been doing 11 years."

Ron is a neighbor of our largest Community Market Farm and owner of Ron's Pit Stop, a barbecue business at 25th and Valencia in San Francisco. As an experienced cook, he loves to peruse the many varieties of greens at our weekly farm stand. He has a recipe that uses four types of greens and one special ingredient: smoked turkey butt.

"The smoked turkey butt is totally different from smoked turkey wings or smoked turkey neck," he said. "It's very flavorful!"

Ron first noticed City Slicker Farms' farm stand when he drove by on his way to the freeway. He decided to stop and struck up a conversation with Farm Assistant Joseph Davis.

"I was first inspired just by the education and knowledge of how he raises his fruits and vegetables," Ron said. "He introduced me to a lot of vegetables that I didn’t know anything about, like the different kinds of greens, different kinds of spinach, herbs. I’m in the pizza business too and we use a lot of basil, but we use green basil — I didn’t even know they had purple basil until I met Joseph!"

Ron started returning to the farm stand, happy to be supporting a project that he saw positively affecting the community and supporting youth. The more he returned, the more he learned. He even started growing at home after a conversation with Joseph about rue, an herb we grow on the farm that has medicinal uses.

"I was curious what it was so he told me, and now I eat it raw," Ron said. "I took some buds from that plant and planted them in the dirt around my lemon tree. At first, it wasn’t coming up. Now you can’t keep it from coming up."

Rue has become a part of his daily routine.

"I eat a piece of that every morning and I like it because it makes me spit up a lot of phlegm and stuff — it comes right up and out. It’s an acquired taste, though, let me tell you that now!"

If you want to check out Ron's Pit Stop, head to Clooney's Pub at 25th and Valencia in San Francisco, or email him at [email protected] for catering. And as for Oakland BBQ spots, Ron recommends Phat Matt's and KC's, but says it's hard to go wrong, especially if you head down Shattuck.

"Oakland-side, it’s far better than San Francisco," he said. "San Francisco sucks! Here, you can at least get some good barbecue."