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Last Market Day of the Season!
The 2009 Brighton Farmers’ Market season wraps up a great season on Sunday, November 1. It’s been a terrific year at the market, as customers have come to value the outstanding variety and quality of foods grown on our local farms. The farmers have worked hard to meet the growing demand for local, sustainably grown foods, and have met the challenge, despite the weather, with a bountiful offering week after week. Many thanks to the farmers, the loyal customers, the Town of Brighton, and all others who have supported the market this year. We look forward to a great year in 2010, and to the Brighton Winter Farmers’ Market, opening soon!
Brighton Winter Farmers’ Market
This year, autumn’s arrival does not mean the end of fresh, locally-grown food from the farmers’ market; the Brighton Winter Farmers’ Market opens November 10. This indoor winter market will bring together many of the market’s popular farmers and vendors to continue to offer the wonderful locally-produced foods that so many area residents have come to value. Our region’s farmers have responded to the growing demand for local, sustainably grown foods by significantly expanding their offerings of late season crops; among the foods they’ll be bringing to market are lettuce, kale, spinach, potatoes, garlic, green and regular onions, winter squash, carrots, cabbage, chard, leeks, kohlrabi, pumpkins, turnips, beets, fresh herbs, apples, and pears. In keeping with the Brighton Farmers’ Market mission of promoting sustainable agriculture, several of the farmers operate certified organic farms or farms that, while not certified, grow their crops using organic methods. In addition, the market will offer chicken, duck, turkey, certified organic beef and pork, eggs, dairy, plus honey, baked goods including biscotti and bread, coffee, jams, chocolates and fudge, fresh pasta and ravioli, herbal products and wreaths, and healthy dog treats.
The market will be held every Tuesday from November 10 through December 22, from 4 to 7 pm. The market thanks the Atonement Lutheran Church for hosting the market; the location is 1900 Westfall Road, between S. Winton and Edgewood.
Thanks!
Thanks to all those who have supported the market this year; a special thank you is owed to several people whose contributions to the market have been invaluable:
- Elizabeth McInerney, a member of the market’s Advisory Board, who is instrumental in managing the market’s layout and assisting with general market management;
- the remaining members of the Advisory Board: Todd Lighthouse, Fred Forsburg, Robert Hadad, Caroline Ravines, and Julie Miller;
- Deborah Edwards, who has managed the music and scheduled the outstanding musicians at the market for the past two years;
- Lili Schwartz and Ben Agronick of liliandben.com. Lili has designed all of the market’s terrific promotional materials, and Ben set up the website and provides support on an ongoing basis;
- Anne Semel, the market’s intern, who has provided general assistance of all types and has written the vendor profiles on the website;
- the teens who helped at the Good Grub Club: Simone, Robin, Sam, Jenny, Valerie, Brynn, Andrew, Cara, Phoebe, and Wes. Thanks to Betsy Liano, and to the Greater Rochester Health Foundation for funding the children’s program;
- Tom Ferraro and Foodlink, for operating the EBT program at the market;
- Ida, the market’s elfin good luck charm.
Ida in Pumpkin Hat
Featured Vendors
Anne, the market’s intern, offers a report of her latest interviews with market vendors:
K & S Bischoping
No matter the season, K & S Bischoping is always in fashion with its seasonal color combinations. In the summer, K & S Bischoping brought us raspberries, peaches, currants, and blackberries in rich saturated hues. And now in these final weeks of the market, I walk up to the red tent in the South corner of the market and not only see Karen in her red hat and apron with a big smile on her face, but also see the beautiful fashionable yellows and greens and reds of about a dozen different kinds of apple.
What’s your apple of choice? Are you sweet or tart? A Crispin maybe? Or how about a Red Delicious? Are you a Cortland? A Fuji? An Empire? I am a Honey Crisp and proud of it. But if you don’t know what you are or are willing to change, Karen or somebody else at the tent will gladly tell you about the different apples. I did hear Karen warn one customer, however, that sometimes apples can taste differently to different people. What you might think is tart, I may perceive as sweet. Those apples are tricky. I’d suggest seeing if you can get a mixed basket, which are not on display, but are sometimes available if you ask.
When I asked Karen how she got started with K & S Bischoping, she admitted that she grew up in the city and that the idea of having a farm was her husband’s idea. They started with potatoes and cabbage and then branched out to fruit orchards (no pun intended?). They brought what they grew to farmers’ markets, and we are lucky that they have found their way to our market.
Karen told me that she loves our market because it has such a great environment. She enjoys meeting all of you and interacting with you every Sunday. She is happy to bring products that she enjoys and hopes you will too.
As with so many of the other vendors I’ve spoken to, the conversation with Karen led to her children’s participation on the farm. She said that by helping to plant and harvest, her children saw things from start to finish, were never bored, and gained a strong work ethic. And although they may not have appreciated some of the tasks at the time, she believes they appreciate the things the farm taught them now that they’re adults. By working at farmers’ markets, the children learned how to communicate with people and think on their feet. In fact, K & S Bischoping was such a strong influence on Karen’s oldest son, that he and his wife have started their own farm, R & S Bischoping Farms, which currently focuses on flowers and tomatoes.
K & S Bischoping follows Integrated Pest Management (IPM) and Integrated Fruit Production (IFP) methods in an effort to be environmentally friendly. They restrict the use of spray materials on their crops. When you bite into one of their apples, you can truly feel like you’re making a healthy choice.
Pasta Classics
I could eat pasta every single day. For most of my teenage years, in fact, I ate some sort of pasta almost every day, and I only usually substituted it for fast food or cold leftovers. (Note A: My mom cooked and if I had been home at 6 PM any night, she would have served me a balanced meal. My fault, not hers. Note B: I eat almost any kind of vegetable or fruit; I just rarely cook them and am never inspired by them like most of the markets’ vendors.) I would have told you just a few months ago that I could eat spaghetti for breakfast, linguine for dinner, and those tri-colored pastas for dessert. Every day. Willingly.
But that was crazy because I would not be getting any fruits or vegetables in my diet and now I know I was settling with that packaged store stuff. After trying numerous samples and buying numerous other flavors of raviolis from Pasta Classics, I can say that I could eat feta and spinach ravioli for breakfast, artichoke and provolone ravioli for lunch, chicken and pepperjack ravioli for dinner, and pumpkin ravioli for dessert every single day. All of them, with the exception of the pumpkin ravioli, would have to be smothered in Pasta Classics’ vodka sauce. The pumpkin ravioli is good in a butter sauce. I am new to sweet raviolis, so if you know of some better sauce for them, find me.
And if I wasn’t allowed to have ravioli for every meal, I guess I could deal with a substitution of half a loaf of their spinach feta bread baked in the oven for a meal or two. I would be having nicely balanced meals. Pasta, cheeses, a little protein, some vegetables and a fruit.
So clearly I have an addiction. And the people who are feeding this addiction are Vince and Nancy Tripi of Pasta Classics. It really doesn’t help that they have about 30 different varieties of ravioli, all hand-made, along with about 8 flavors of stuffed breads and the sauces to put on top. When I went to interview them, after I sat on their cooler and ate my weekly Sunday morning sample, I asked about their favorite flavors. Vince told me that his favorite flavor of bread is the Roast Beef, Garlic and Cheddar loaf and his favorite ravioli is the Crab and Shrimp. He said that Nancy’s favorite in both the bread and the ravioli is the Spinach and Feta. After helping a customer, Nancy confirmed that.
Vince and Nancy have a certified kitchen adjacent to their home in Canandaigua, NY. They started making their ravioli a couple of years ago when they coupled with the Original Pasta Man from the Public Market to make their delicious pasta. And if it wasn’t for this union, and for Salamone Fresh Pasta (which will be featured very soon), I would probably still be eating pasta from a box found in some aisle in the grocery store.
If you’re still eating grocery store pasta, I strongly suggest you make your way to Pasta Classics, whose tent is located closest to the tennis courts, in order to try their sample ravioli this next week. Pasta Classics will be joining the Brighton Winter Farmers’ Market.
