My boots cut tracks in the snow- banked sidewalk while polar gusts slapped me from all directions. I had seen artisanal flyers advertising a Winter Farmers' Market that would continue to offer fresh fruits and vegetables throughout the harsh months, but even Pablo Escobar couldn’t turn snow into crops. What relevant items could the winter market sell beyond hot cocoa and mittens? Who would brave the elements aside from the curious and masochistic? The answer to both of my questions was: a lot, a whole damn lot.
The Toledo Farmers' Market is open every Saturday of the year, and it has been a place for local producers to meet local consumers since 1832. Located at 525 Market St. in between Huron and Superior, it has held its current downtown space since the 1950’s. This will be the seventh year that the market has stayed open during the winter, with over forty vendors set-up each week. The vendors are all local, and they are phenomenal.
Variety of goodness
Canal Junction Farm, in Defiance, makes raw milk cheese with home-raised family cows. Their master cheese maker, Brian Schlatter, studied cheese making at the University of Vermont. Turkeyfoot Creek Creamery, from Defiance, makes cheese from their own goats’ milk—I’ve eaten an entire plate of their onion and dill cheese curds in one sitting. Earth to Oven makes organic desserts and baked goods, such as homemade, organic “Hand Pies” resembling Pop-Tarts, filled with Michigan cherries or Ohio Apples. Bea’s and Flying Rhino both roast their own coffee, and both told me more about the regions from which they source their beans than I know about my own neighborhood. Sage Organics grows fresh greens indoors in Genoa throughout the winter. Witt’s Orchard sells apples raised in Oak Harbor. Several farmers sell root vegetables pulled weekly from the winter soil.
“People don’t realize how much is here,” said Dan Madigan, The Farmers’ Market Association’s Executive Director. Vendors sell salsa, flowers, homemade jellies and preserves, dips, popcorn, fresh- baked bread, local honey, crafts, and hot peppers, and the best soft pretzel I have ever eaten.
Knot, a big deal
I consider myself an expert on few things, none more than the quality of soft pretzels, and Amelia Contreras of Egg & Honey has perfected the art. Their crust is baked brown, with salt casually sprinkled on top. The inside is moist and chewy, with a hint of egg. These are not your ballpark pretzels that require a Coke or a beer to wash down for fear of dry-mouth lockjaw. These are made in the authentic sourdough tradition, which is a time-intensive method that Contreras promises will “deepen the flavor” of her breads. I reheated my pretzel at home in the oven, and the next thing I knew I was lying on the floor supine and sedated, euphorically reclined like one of the junkies from The Wire.
Just a few feet from the main hall is the Campbell Poultry House. Jan Campbell has the disposition of a school bus driver, someone you feel like you already know upon first meeting. Her voice crackles, and her lips smile incessantly. Her family has sold chickens since 1943. She sells “just regular farm chickens,” as she calls them, processed and ready to cook, with no hormones nor cages nor trickery. Behind the counter is a hand-sketched poster that says “Our Chickens Don’t Do Drugs.”
As I walked out of Campbell’s, Jan shouted “Goodbye, Dorian!” I feel welcome most places in Toledo because I will see someone there that I have met before. At the Farmers’ Market, I typically know no one. That doesn’t stop the people there from making me feel completely at home, or from loading my arms full of handmade, local foods that are good enough to keep me coming back every week.
Dorian Slaybod is 27, a local attorney, and happily living in Toledo.
