"Each group believes it's their place," says David Hamlin, author of a new book, "Los Angeles's Original Farmers Market," written with Brett Arena, archivist for the A.F. Gilmore Co., the family firm that owns the market.
And, in fact, it is their place, at least for a little while.
"Do you know who we are? . . . That is the inventor of the Ponzi. . . . This man invented coffee. . . . We're not friends, we're outpatients."
So begins a conversation -- or perhaps a performance -- at what must be the funniest, and the most frequently quoted, table in the market. Asked how long the fluctuating group of six to 10 people has been meeting, one says 30 years. In a flash, another adds, "I got here Thursday."
At the table one recent Wednesday morning are Freeman, who included the market in his 2004 novel, "It's All True"; director Paul Mazursky and actor Jack Riley, who has been in dozens of films and TV shows (think Elliot Carlin on "The Bob Newhart Show" and Stu Pickles in "Rugrats").
They move quickly through the news of the day. They talk about movies and food, "and pray that we stay alive another day. Our medical reports are extensive," Mazursky says, listing a four-way bypass, strokes and trouble walking among their ailments.
Despite it all, "we are obsessive about coming here. We feel compelled to come here," he says.
By midday, many of the East Patio regulars have come and gone. Tourists and workers from the neighborhood are out for lunch. People roam from stand to stand reading menus for Italian, Mexican, Malaysian, deli, Middle Eastern, barbecue, sushi, Chinese and more. There's English toffee that "is its own food group," says Jimmy Shaw, owner of the popular Loteria Grill Mexican food stand. There's homemade horseradish and ice cream.
"On a hot day, when the temperature is just right and the smells are blowing in just the right direction, it's like I was 6 years old," says Stan Savage, the 36-year-old market manager and great-great-grandson of company founder A.F. Gilmore.
There are shops that seem out of step in an Abercrombie-dominated world. Treasures of the Pacific sells scarves and shells and wind chimes. Others sell stickers, a thousand kinds of hot sauce, souvenirs and toys (none of them electronic games). Shoppers can watch candy being made at Littlejohn's, or butchers or cake decorators at work. Teenagers on summer break roam between the market and the Grove.
