Category: The Farmer’s Market

Like Mickey Mouse likes to sing, dreams do come true. I’m learning that our much-loved Farmer’s Market is more than a farmer’s market; it’s an incubator for community and creativity. Success and new energy are popping out all over the market and spreading well beyond.

I should say I have deep feeling for people who have a vision or dream and fight for it, rather than run and hide and accept a life where money and security are the foundations of their life, not bliss.

Casey is one of those people.

Casey Face, the gifted and determined dreamer I’ve been following for months, has taken a massive step towards operating a Cafe and Wine Bar in the space at the Hubbard Hall Arts And Entertainment Center in the middle of town. The Round House Cafe once occupied the space lost to the city during the pandemic.

She met this week with the Hubbard Hall Board of Directors and presented an amazingly detailed and thoroughly researched seven-page proposal on which she had worked very hard for months. One of the board members told me it was a great hit with the board. It’s seven pages long and has grown quite a bit since she first started renovating a beat-up one-horse trailer and planned to sell coffee and tea in the mornings.

Her new plan offers Hubbard Hall and the town something we all miss and would love to see. Casey’s proposal included a marketing plan and a menu list. It may have been one of the most professionally outlined and detailed business plans in the town’s history.

She writes, “Canteen Coffee Co. is dedicated to crafting delicious food and beverages using fresh and locally sourced ingredients from nearby farmers and small businesses. We aim to establish a welcoming and inspiring space for our community.” She means it, too.

She calls Canteen Coffee a coffee shop of the future, a coffee shop and a wine bar that “prides itself on a straightforward menu crafted from fresh, local ingredients. Additionally, it will feature a market section where patrons can grab takeaway items such as salads, sandwiches, bottles of wine, local cheeses, artisan bread, farm-fresh flowers, penny candy, and more.”

I’ve been following Casey’s dream with her for months now.  She’s attracted a score of creative food makers to work with her. It’s a much bigger dream than she originally planned, but she is making it happen.

I credit the Farmer’s Market for incubating her research and exploration, her burgeoning connection to farmers, cheese makers, coffee and muffin makers, artisan bread and muffin bakers, and a dozen other people who will be working to provide atmosphere and food and drink she’s talking about. One thing I know about Casey is that if she says she will do it, she will do it.

I’m not a wine drinker, but I would be thrilled to stop by for her coffee sandwiches and salads. Maria feels the same way. She can’t wait for a wine bar nearby. I’ll be tagging along.

Casey is coming to the farm this week to look at some fabrics and other materials Maria has offered to give her for her cafe. We’ll be happy to help. I’m curious if the Hubbard Hall board will accept her offer; it’s not my business, but her proposal is sure a knockout. I hope it flies. Casey’s dreams have mushroomed since I first met her and saw her horse trailer. She is close to triumph; her husband and family are behind her.

And don’t worry about the horse trailer. She’ll be going to special events.

(Above. Casey dragged her coffee, tea, and muffin display across the county and public spaces for over a year while plotting her coffee canteen.  She admitted she wasn’t making any money, but was also learning a lot. Casey sucks up ideas like a hungry shark. This is where I first saw her and asked if I could follow her dream.)

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I’ve been following Keen Mcllvaine of the Covered Wood Bread Co.,  another dreamer who is about to break through and get her wish for a bakery to make her excellent artisan bread. She has me addicted to her seeded grain bread and focaccia bread, which are mainstays in her artistry as a bread maker. I’ve never had bread that tasted like that, and now she will be baking right down the road from us, just outside of the village of Cambridge. A lot of people are in for a pleasant surprise.

Keen will be moving her stoves and bakery to a new vegetable stand that sells fresh vegetables (delicious and healthy ones) in a renovated old country store. Keen moved here from Washington D.C. several years ago with her husband Jordan, who makes raw honey from his bee hives. Keen is already selling her bread all over the county but has wanted a bakery from the beginning.

Keen was weary of leaving D.C. for the sticks, but I suspect she will learn that some dreams are much easier to make true here than in a big city. Here, we all get to know one another fast.

She’ll leave the farmer’s market in the late Spring to open her bakery.  This is a big deal for our little town, another outcropping of energy, hard work, and determination for the farmer’s market, the place to go if you want to plant the seeds for a dream.

Cindy, the Goat Lady, and our friend returned to the Farmer’s Market after an exhausting week helping her goats give birth to about a hundred babies. She sold almost all of them to a farmer from a nearby town who wanted to have a goat farm. He’s got one now.

I missed Cindy, and we missed her excellent goat cheese and her great bars of soap. We are getting together with her and her husband next Saturday morning; we’re meeting them for breakfast. Cindy is one of the sharpest business people I’ve encountered. She reinforces my feeling that the market is much more complicated than I first thought. It is a bastion of creativity and community. Her goats and cheese are selling, and her beautiful soaps are flying out of her shop. They are the best soaps I’ve ever used.

She dreams of skipping some of the markets she drives to every week and weekend and working more out of her home. She’ll be staying at the market, she tells me, which is happy news for me and her many friends. Her ideas and confidence originate in Park from the market, where people first discovered her great cheeses and soaps, and she got to try out her many good ideas.

My friends, the Adirondack Fish people –  Jim, sister Tiffany (left) and fiancé Michele, right.

I wonder if nicer people have ever sold fresh fish anywhere.

They are just as kind, thoughtful, and friendly as their faces suggest. They are great fun; I look for them every time they come.

I bought crab salad, tuna salad, four excellent crab cakes, some fresh shrimp, and some beautiful cut salmon for Maria, fresh from the ocean.

Tiffany and I had a blast when she saw me wearing my  Taylor Swift “tis the damn season” wool cap; she is a longtime Swiftie. We talked about Swift and her music while brother Jim kidded both of us about it. His fiancé Michele says they haven’t set a wedding date yet. I hope they get married and have kids. They will be the most nicest kids.

Jim and his family also have many dreams, bringing them to the market 20 miles from home.

He plans to expand the Adirondack Seafood Co. restaurant by reaching out to customers and coming to them. People in this town were shocked and thrilled by the news that fresh fish was coming to buy. I wasn’t sure I’d ever see a real Lobster Roll again. Their menu is creative, inexpensive, and delicious.

These younger people sprouting in the market have innovation, energy, and savvy that has long been absent in small-town America. I love it is a joy to know them and eat their delicious fish.  They are doing well, and Jim’s plans are ambitious.

The market is filling up with success stories and new energy. I’m grateful to see it.

Singer Kate Blain, a photographer, came over to me—she was providing the music at the market—to ask about my Leica Monochrome. She reminded me of two or three years ago when I realized I wanted a Leica camera to grow as a photographer. I was sure I would never have enough money to afford one.

Still, I  took my time, wore out my old calculator, and carefully planned to trade $5,000 worth of cameras and lenses I had collected for nearly ten years for a  used Leica in excellent condition. I spent years amassing my equipment, just one camera.

That was the beginning; I now have two used Leica cameras and two or three Sigma lenses because I can’t afford Leica lenses. Nothing is impossible if you don’t quit.

It was worth it for me. The Leica cameras are worth every penny, and I  grow every time I use one. I wish Kate good luck. Nothing is impossible if we can be patient and put our minds and energy into it. Good luck, Kate. I hope you don’t quit. It’s odd, but I see the Farmer’s Market as a focal point for community, healthy, locally grown food, and creativity. Almost everyone who sells goods there is creative.

I only met this gracious and gifted young woman a few weeks ago, and I don’t know her well,  but she has changed my life and brought a healthy, surprising, and bright spot to it. The pandemic took some things away and brought some other things. It brought some brilliant food makers and creatives to our community, and suddenly, I could pick up the best bread I’ve ever had right by a covered bridge one town up the road.

Kean, who is soft-spoken and slightly shy, is creative through and through. She is working hard to start a baking business and getting noticed. I think she missed Washing when she moved, but she is clearly beginning to like it and is experimenting with all kinds of ideas to get her business going.

I have lived here for nearly 20 years and have never seen or tasted bread like this, not even when I lived in New York or Washington. Kean is the new future of rural eating.

She is also breaking ground and joining the group for the small group of young farmers and bakers who have either been here or moved here to escape big cities during the pandemic. She uses the things they grow to help the rural economy. Organic farmers need all the help they can get.

Kean’s husband Jordan is very serious about his beekeeping, and I swear the teaspoon of honey I take has wiped out most of my allergies and boosted my energy. I can’t eat a lot of money, but a small teaspoon with breakfast has worked for me. Jordan works from home at his job as a consultant for fund-raisers.

Kean and her fellow dreamers, cooks, and bakers are changing this world. I love their passion for food and their loyalty to one another. It’s a great boon to people like me who miss cities’ diverse and original food offerings. Up here, veggie burgers are still a surprise.

I never bought bread this way. Most bread isn’t good for me, but I’ve hit the jackpot.

Every Monday, I drive to the Covered Bridge Food Co. in Kean’s house and open a chest out front with my bread and honey. I leave the money in an envelope and drive away. I can go to the Farmer’s Market if I want to talk to Kean. It’s an innovation for the country.

It is a pleasure to drive a few miles away and bring home this fresh and nutritious bread. It far transcends the supermarket experience. And so does the bread.

Our rural world is changing, and it is primarily gifted and determined young women bringing this long-overdue creativity and enthusiasm to the area. I remember moving here and asking a cashier in our small town if they sold wheat bread. She looked at me as if I had fallen out of a spaceship. They have wheat bread now.

Kean offers new and original ways to buy bread – get it at the Farmer’s Market in various food stories, subscribe, and pick it up in porches in one or two nearby towns, as I do. I have a hunch Kean will have her bakery someday.

I have bought into something from her I never did before a flat rate subscription to get one of the chewy and healthy bread for Maria and me. I’d drive a lot farther than the bridge for bread like this, a sourdough loaded with flax, fennel, poppy, and sunflower. I was overjoyed to find it and subscribe monthly.

My leavened seed bread is one of her less remarkable bread offerings at the moment; this week, Kean is  proud of this focaccia: crumbled pork sausage, fresh mozzarella, grated fontina, and a “little spice from my favorite Calabrian chillis.”

I got an e-mail from her early this morning: “The focaccia special this week is a can’t-miss. I know this isn’t the first time that I have said that. There have been a lot of great focaccia specials in the past. Still, I generally don’t get quite as excited about the focaccia specials in the winter when I can’t use the amazing produce that our local farms produce all summer. I am very excited about this focaccia…”

I love that last line.

I drooled over this focaccia at the farmer’s market this morning, but I can’t eat bread like that; I stick to the muli seeds and grains. I do admire Kean’s enthusiasm and passion for her work. To me, that makes all of the difference. Her work is a vocation, not a job. That means she loves it especially and with passion, as Maria loves hers.

Spoken like a trained and Michelin-starred chef who comes from Washington, D.C, and lives with her husband Jordan by the beautiful Battenville River (where I nearly drowned once jumping into the stream to save my Lab Julius, who, it turns out, was the only Lab ever who didn’t know how to swim, having grown up in New Jersey.)

I feel blessed to get a load of bread like this; I have never seen one in the town, the county, or the region, for that matter. I’m going to subscribe for as long as I can. The bread (I’ve nibbled some of her cookies, too; I got them for Maria) is fantastic, and I am a big fan of Jordan’s raw honey, a food I can eat and enjoy in small amounts – a teaspoon every morning. I wish everyone in the world had access to bread like this.

(From Kean’s blog intro, it says a lot about her: Covered Bridge Bread Company is the creation of Kean McIlvaine, a classically trained Michelin-starred chef from Washington, DC, but has made her home in Shushan, NY. She handcrafts bread and other baked goods and lives by the motto that freshly baked bread shouldn’t be a luxury but a human right.) Go Kean.

(If you have diabetes, choosing raw honey that does not contain added sugars is the best way. But even though raw honey does not contain added sugar, it should still be treated like table sugar and eaten in moderation. New studies show that small amounts of raw honey help diabetics maintain a good sugar level. For diabetics, eating in moderation is everything.)

We stopped at the Farmer’s Market again today and were happy to see the big crowd there. Their new site seems to have pulled in new people and many townspeople who didn’t seem to know there was a Farmers Market just outside town. The community lives, and I feel it there.

Markets like this are a powerful way for people to meet and see each other without getting online.

That makes a huge difference.  The market is the opposite of tense.

The people in town got the message; there were lines everywhere.

For me, the market’s success is personal. We get a lot of things we need there, from soap to flowers to vegetables. But there is a natural feeling of community now that I didn’t feel before. I rarely feel like I belong in the sense of community; I love living here but am an outsider.

I don’t feel that way at the market. I feel like I’m seeing my community come together and make something work, and I can be a part of it.

I have several good friends who sell their worlds at the market. You know one of them by now, Cindy Casavant, a/k/a the Goat Lady from Caz Acrez Farm, who sells lovely goat cheese and pies and muffins. I have just discovered her new oatmeal soap and love it. She makes the only soap I will use, I’m spoiled, and she is beginning to make it wholesale and sell it everywhere.

In the age of AI, the market is personal, cozy, and very comfortable. We are getting to know people we have never seen, and the range of things sold is rich and useful. I don’t have to go to a supermarket between the food co-op and the market all summer. The music played there is very good.

I hope she never stops coming to the county fair. We love catching up with her and learning about the struggles of running a goat farm. It is not an easy life. I am very fond of Cindy; she is genuine, honest, and an increasingly sharp businesswoman.

I think her soap business is taking off. She’s going to the Schagaticoke Fair in a week or two and is afraid she’ll sell out in the first few hours; many people are at that fair; a friend sold five hundred bars of soap there a few years ago.

I hope she doesn’t get too big for the farm market. Like Cindy, the vendors are a pleasure to deal with, polite, fun, and patient. Farmers have a strong attachment to the things they make and sell; supermarkets define the idea of impersonal. It’s refreshing to go there. Trees and beautiful old buildings surround the new site. It just feels good to go there.

The muffins and cookies are great, the goat cheese is amazing and the vegetables are inexpensive and fresh.

America is still a place where skill and hard work pay off. It’s a pleasure to see her challenging work is so successful. Cindy is a friend now, and she gave us some duck eggs. Maria is trading for a potholder in exchange for some goat cheese. She and Cindy made a deal. Bartering is a big country thing.

I imagine she’ll sell out right away there. You can follow her life and buy soap here.

Maria pulled a big zucchini out of the garden yesterday; we will cook a zucchini pancake together tonight. I think we did this once before.

We bought some fresh eggs from Joint Venture Farm; they sell bacon, pork, and eggs. We are planning to cook zucchini pancakes tonight; our hens took the day off. The Joint Venture people were taking a break; they were busy all morning. I’ll get their names next week.

I’m grateful to Anne Moss of Hickory Wind Farm; I’ve purchased some of the next flowers in my bed from Anne, who is very serious about her flowers, her family has been growing flowers for generations, and it shows. I bought the Coreopsis she is holding. Maria will get that when I have to shut down my garden in the fall.

She’s impressive and really knows flowers. She has been a real gift to my gardens this year. I love to get to the market and see what she’s brought. I love all of it.

With the onset of the vegetable season, Erwin’s Long Days Farm tent has tripled in size. He and his daughter have the best vegetable design anywhere. When we arrived, the line was long and eager. If we don’t get there early, many things are gone after an hour. The Farm Market has a new location in the middle of town; seeing it so successful is sweet. Community lives.

No AI talk here. It’s all human to human.