Santa Monica Farmers' Market Farmers: Alex Weiser

Alex Weiser is the potato king of Los Angeles, and the eternal prom king of the Santa Monica Farmers’ Market, with his straw fedora glued to his head like a crown. In 1981, when he was seventeen, a knock on the Weiser family’s double-wide in Tehachapi informed them of a new farmers’ market in Santa Monica. A few months later, Alex drove to Santa Monica and set up a table with apples, pears, and peaches, the proceeds from which would eventually pay for his college education. The family turned to potatoes when a freeze wiped out their orchard; at first they focused on old-school varieties like White Rose and russet to start, but chefs Nancy Silverton and Mark Peel encouraged them to grow the lumpy rainbow of spuds that would ultimately make them famous. At fifty-two years old, Alex is impossible to keep up with, both physically and in terms of new crops and projects, which range from collaborating with local brewers on a mulberry saison, to partnering with Glenn Roberts (of Anson Mills) to revive a forgotten Southern California grain economy.

From “How to Do the Santa Monica Farmers’ Market (@smfms)” by Gillian Ferguson for Lucky Peach, 2016; Photo by TJ Tambellini

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