A Passion for Community and Cooking: 3 Women Behind the Stalls at Marin’s Farmers Markets

We spoke with three women whose thriving food businesses can be found at many local farmers markets. Dig in to hear their thoughts on cooking and community.

Did we miss anyone? Let us know your favorite farmers market stands. 

Stacey Waldspurger

What inspired you to start your business?

I developed a love of food, specifically food shared in community, when I launched a meal kit business after graduate school. This company, Tomato Sherpa, created dinner kits delivered to businesses around the Bay Area for employees to take home to cook. During our demos, I connected with customers and saw how our meals helped them share food in a new way, with families and friends coming together around cooking. While the business needed much more funding than I was able to raise to succeed, it gave me something I didn’t want to let go of. 

Years later, when the pandemic set in, I did what many people did: I got a sourdough starter from a friend and began making bread. It was a fun distraction at first, then it became an obsession. I delivered bread to my neighbors’ mailboxes to “try this batch.” When they began to request it more regularly, I launched a website for ordering the breads and some of my favorite baked goods. With most of Marin stuck at home, my timing was good, and word got out about my website. Quickly, I enlisted friends, my kids and my mom to help fulfill orders that we put on a baker’s rack by my front door for pick-up.

Today we are at seven to nine farmers markets weekly and producing in a commercial bakery that we built out in San Rafael. I started as a complete novice and have relied on the skills of the small Waldscraft team. Chef Erick Angeles-Menendez has been with me now for two years and has patiently coached me and helped me scale our batches and build our production. We have developed a broad range of items including laminated pastries, a wheat-free selection and many seasonal items. We source our produce from the farmers markets where we participate, and we use organic ingredients that are locally sourced as much as we can.

What are your most popular items, and do you provide gluten-free or vegan items?

Some of our most popular items include our wheat-free and seed-based “wunderbread,” adventure bars (granola bars), savory galettes (our spinach and mushroom with goat cheese is a big hit), and seasonal pastries. Our chocolate beet cake is vegan and wheat-free and sells out very fast. 

We have many wheat-free items which are popular because we focus on recipes that are meant to be made with alternative flours, such as our chocolate buckwheat cookies. We make a wheat-free cornmeal and almond upside-down cake with seasonal fruit, such as apricots which I can source in the spring. 

What advice would you give to other women who want to start a food business?

My advice for women interested in starting a food business, or any business really, is to start small and get in front of your customers as you develop. I’ve done it both ways and have seen the difference. Maintaining confidence and pushing aside self-doubt is a challenge for so many of us, so I rely on my regular customers and a select community to remind me of my strengths when I doubt myself. Find your people who will support you on the hard days!

What do you love most about selling at the farmer’s market?

I love the rush of the five- to six-hour sales window. We set up to move a lot of pastry at these markets, and that excitement suits my personality. 

People shop differently at the farmers market. There is an element of fun that you can’t get at a store, and this makes customer interactions engaging and personal. Customers will share candid feedback with the intention of encouraging me and helping me to improve and refine my recipes. 

My relationships with vendors at the markets are another unexpected benefit. I have developed personal relationships with my suppliers, a huge supportive network of food-loving entrepreneurs and friends that I not only look forward to seeing each week, but who deeply understand the challenges we face as small business owners. 

Aryan Alexandra Abbassi

What inspired you to start your business and sell soups and baby food at the farmers market?

I am an accidental business owner. I graduated from law school and worked in corporate firms for over 20 years before I left law and attended culinary school. I then worked in San Francisco restaurants for eight years, learning from some of their top chefs. 

After I stopped working in restaurants, an unfortunate experience in my life became the bridge to my soup business, which is now one of the best things in my life: I was extremely sick with a cold and couldn’t find a single soup in a Marin store that was nutritious, let alone delicious. All the soups I found in Marin had cream, flours, sugars or other fillers. I am Iranian and grew up with my mom’s and grandmothers’ soups that were made with the most beautiful fresh ingredients. Our culture has eaten farm-to-table for centuries, well before it became a fad. I decided then to make my own nutrient-dense soups with restaurant-quality ingredients and finesse. As my business grew, and due to customer requests, I now provide freshly made entrees and organic baby food. Many of my customers feed my soups to their infants as their first food. My soups are also suitable for seniors and people going through medical treatments, who need nutrient-rich food that is free of oils, alliums, salt and spice.  

What are your most popular soups?

Many! A few include Thai coconut chicken curry, wild mushroom, summer gazpacho, vegan Moroccan harira, split pea and smoked ham. Popular entrees include Moroccan lamb tagine, French cassoulet with duck confit and Southwest chili with cornbread. 

Do you have seasonal specialties for spring?  

Yes. Persian New Year is at the beginning of the Spring Equinox, so Persian pomegranate soup is a specialty. Also, matzo ball soup for Passover, a vegan English pea and mint soup and spring lamb entrees. 

Who is your typical client?

My customers are 90% women. The remaining 10% are men who usually come to shop at the direction of their significant others. People who have dietary restrictions also buy my soup, as well as parents who seek healthy food for their children and family dinners, lunches and parties.

What is the most rewarding part of selling at the farmers market?

I love my customers, and my fellow vendors. The most rewarding part is my interaction with each customer and the love, inspiration and support they bring to me each week. After nine years, many of them are like family. 

Do you have any advice you would give to other women wanting to start a food business? 

Owning a food business, even a very small one, is not for the faint of heart. There are many ups and downs, trials and errors and financial highs and lows, not to mention the physical strain — and the increase in the price of goods that makes my visa bill look like it was the victim of identity theft each month!

Yuko Kaneko

What inspired you to start selling Japanese home-cooked food at the farmers market?

I started Kinoko in 2022. I used to work at Brickmaiden Breads in Point Reyes as a pastry baker, where I learned a lot. Cooking has always been my interest but never as a business, until I thought I could introduce dishes that I grew up with. My mom is a great cook, and we always had her home-cooked meals at home.

I have always enjoyed visiting farmers markets, and while I thought about having a stall at the market, it was my ex-coworker from Brickmaiden who encouraged me to contact our local farmers market manager. That was my starting point.


What types of dishes do you offer? I make Japanese rice balls (onigiri), rice bowls (donburi) and mochi muffins.


What’s your most popular dish? 

Salmon onigiri. 

Do you have any seasonal spring specialties?

Yes, I pick cherry blossoms in the spring and preserve them in salt. The salted cherry blossoms are a seasonal rice ball filling.


What’s the most rewarding part of selling at the farmers market?

My customers who return for more, and when some of them try to make their own Japanese food at home. I feel as though I have inspired them by sharing and spreading the idea of Japanese home cooking. 


What’s the biggest challenge of running a food stall at the farmers market?

Trying to remember everything I need to operate at the farmers market. We carry a lot of ingredients and equipment to serve you!