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Woodstock Times - Food | 9/3/2009 |
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Let a thousand flowers bloom
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by Dan Barton
It can be assumed with some measure of safety that those who visit farmers' markets expect to find the basics there - fruit, vegetables, meats. Sometimes, though, the ordinary offerings are supplemented with the unusual. Market-goers find themselves returning home with decorative grasses, eucalyptus leaves, African baskets and gourmet compound butters, to name just a few.
Dennis Kaye, one of the co-managers of the Rosendale Farmers' Market, which operates Sundays from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Rosendale Community Center on Route 32, highlighted the baskets and the butters.
The baskets come to the area with via Caroline Kearney, an artist based in the Columbia County town of Claverack. Kearney gets the baskets, made by a women's cooperative in the west African nation of Ghana, though an importer in North Carolina. This non-local content runs afoul of some farmers' markets, which have rules that stipulate that whatever is sold at a market must come from within a certain radius of distance from the market. (That circle rarely extends 5000-plus miles, the distance from Ulster County to Ghana.)
"The issue has been for me that I'm not making the baskets myself, and some of the markets have pretty strict rules, where they do not allow anything that is not locally made," Kearney said. "On the other hand, the other markets say to themselves that this is a very rural item, it helps people, so they bring it in."
The Rosendale Farmers' Market and others, though, said Kearney, has made an exception for the baskets, which she buys outright, "so the women can have the money."
"Normally speaking, we try to get products which are done close by," Kaye said, "but we were so impressed with the quality of these baskets. The baskets are hand-woven out of elephant grass and have rigid bottoms, which make them better for toting stuff around than the standard-issue canvas reusable bag. What we had noticed, is that people loved the canvas bags .... We started seeing people bringing baskets to carry their vegetables," Kaye said. "One woman explained to me, Some of the vegetables you buy are delicate and perishable, and you don't want to start loading them into a bag, lettuce on top of apples on top of lettuce. So they bring flat baskets. This way, in a basket, you have more of an area to lay them out."
The baskets are dyed with bright pigments, which Kearney says are color-fast. Measuring about 18 inches high by about 20 inches wide, some are circular and some are oval. All have large hoop-like handles which are finished with goat skin.
Appropriately enough, in their native land, "they are called market baskets," Kearney said, noting that the handles allow for them to be carried with poles, if desired. "They are very, very strong and are lightweight .... When I get them, they are crunched together so the shipping wouldn't be very, very expensive. and I have to un-crunch them by soaking them in water a minute and shaping them. If they get dirty from the ground or the vegetables, no big deal. You just hose them down and reshape them and let them dry, and you start out new."
Kearney, whose main line is quilts, quilt materials and batiks, said she goes to about four markets a weekend selling the bags. "Some of them are better than others, as you can imagine."
She said the response to the baskets has been very good. "I get a lot of repeat business in such that someone buys one for themselves, and their sister comes and says, I've got to have that basket. The only problem for me is the baskets are very sturdy. Nobody buys another basket for themselves."
"I'm seeing a lot of people coming back with these baskets," Kaye said. "They're really nice baskets. The eye catches when you see it."
Steve Ferri, co-founder of the Ulster County-based (located between Lomontville and the seldom-cited Pacama out Stone Ridge way) Scotch Hands Butter Co., said the company has been in operation for a little over a year. Ferri, a former chef and television newsman, and business partner and restaurateur Niels Nielsen are in charge of the operation. Grade AA butter and all-natural ingredients are used, and the company has been named a "Best Bet" by New York magazine.
Ferri touts the butters, which come in honey orange vanilla, pomegranate walnut, wasabi soy, basil lemon garlic, balsamic shallot herb and habanero flavors, as a very quick way to turn a regular meal into a taste explosion.
"If you know how to cook, this is a great product for you - you can do pan sauces and all that kind of stuff, steamed mussels, etc. If you don't know how to cook, this is even better for you, because all you need to know how to do is melt. Literally. Spread and melt on anything hot .... Literally, you're having a restaurant-quality meal all of a sudden, with two seconds work of worth."
Ferri added that the awesomeness of the butter allows the cook to concentrate on getting the meat done properly and not multi-task, having to make a sauce at the same time. "It's more than just a compound butter, it's a complex butter which melts into a gourmet sauce. If you think about it, it's a spreadable sauce for steak, fish or chicken. It's instant great flavor, with no labor, literally. There's just so many things you can do with it. It just transforms anything."
Ferri said an "independent agent named Joe" is the company's representative at local farmers' markets, and the butter is also sold at farmstands and Adams Fairacre Farms. "We've been finding the response, no matter where we are, is really great. At Adams, for example, it's been overwhelming."
"I'm finding as people see them and they try it, they're developing more and more of a following," said Kaye. "We were very glad to have them, but we were very concerned - we didn't know how it would go over, how they would do. But they seemed satisfied with us, in terms of what they're getting out of the market. But they've been coming and I think they're doing okay."++
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Food