New Haven Independent

Alderman Joe Jolly, costumed as a sweet corn, was supposed to have received the ceremonial lettuce at the Thursday opening, but Jolly was suspiciously late to the proceedings. His role was taken by game understudy Carrie Ewing, a sophomore at the Sound School, who is working this year at the market through the city’s Youth at Work program.
The Fair Haven Market is cosponsored by City Seed, Junta for Progressive Action, and Grand Avenue Village Association (GAVA). It is part of a network of New Haven farmers’ markets that include sites at the Green, open on Wednesdays from one to six; at Wooster Square on Saturdays, from nine to one; and at Edgewood Park on Sundays from ten to two. All the markets will be open through Oct. 27.
Like Janet Mason of East Haven, who was shopping with her grandkids, Gabrielle and Julian for peaches, raspberries, and yellow squash, Reyes-Rivera said she herself had grown up on a different dietary planet, where meals consisted primarily of rice, beans, and pork chops. She was delighted with the variety of healthful fresh foods the market was bringing to the area.
The blueberries that Allyx Schiavone’s kids, Penn and Josie, bought were, like all the food in the market, locally grown, pesticide-free or greatly reduced, and grown on small family farms. They were purchasing the tasty treats from Stacia Monahan (in the back in the photo), whose Stone Gardens farm in Shelton, is one of four or five farms that will be at the market throughout the season. Stone Gardens has 35 acres and specializes in sweet corn that has the same succulent taste every year, she says, from growing in the same soil.
“I especially enjoy talking to the customers,” she said. “They often ask how fresh the food is — it is always picked the same day — and how we recommend things should be cooked. By the way, never air dry the corn. Cool it, if you have to, in cold water, so it doesn’t dry out. It’s lots of fun. That’s why we do all four locations in New Haven,” Monahan said. “Wait till we bring the garlic next week.”
As Jennifer McTiernan, City Seed’s executive director — in the photo with onions and with Northfordy Farm’s Peter Rothenberg and his organic heirloom zucchini — toured your reporter around the market, it became clear the farmer’s market is about a lot more than healthy food. It’s also about healthy bodies, a healthy local farm economy, and community development.
“This is also about education as well,” she said. “It’s ironic and sad that people often seem to care a lot more about the gas they put in their cars than the food they put in their bodies. That’s why we’re delighted to have people from the Fair Haven Health Clinic with us too this year, offering healthy recipes, and showing the links between good food and good health.”
At the clinic’s table, volunteers (left to right) Lisa Slifka, a recent graduate of Yale’s School of Nursing, Emma Barber, a (Yale) Dwight Hall summer fellow, and Erica Mintzer, entering her second year at Yale Medical School were explaining, in passable Spanish, how diet can help reduce the shopper’s presion alta, high blood pressure.
“The three main problems we see in the clinic are diabetes, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol,” said Barber. “That’s why some of the best things we can do for our patients is get the word out about the market and healthy, organically grown food they can buy here. Nutrition is often the best cure, and being at the market helps establish our presence here.”
The Fair Haven Health Clinic is also a focal point for the distribution of WIC coupons, which are issued by the state department of agriculture for qualifying women, infants, and children and are specifically earmarked to be spent at farmers’ markets. The markets also accept food stamps.
The clinic’s employees are also promoting, along with the local law firm, Wiggins and Dana, the Farmers’ Baskets program. Through the program, people commit to purchase a $20 “share” in the farms’ produce, and every week that amount’s worth of peaches, peas, ears of corn, squash, whatever’s new and freshly picked, is put in a basket and left for the purchaser at the clinic, or other pick-up point.
“What you get is a surprise each week,” explained City Seed coordinator Nicole Berube (to the right in the photo). “But it’s all great, and flowers and bread might be added to the baskets too. The program will go into high gear in August.”
In this way, the participating farms have a regular revenue stream, in addition to sales made on market day. For more information about this and other aspects of City Seed’s programs, click here.
If we have healthy food, healthy bodies, healthy farms, all we’re missing is a healthy urban economy, and that goal too was reflected in this year’s edition of the Fair Haven Farmers’ Market.
Eva Romero (in the middle of the photo) is founder of Edda’s Creations. Her booth was next to another regular participant, Rose’s Berry Farm of South Glastonbury. She was selling mother of pearl and turquoise necklaces and ear rings that sparkled under the Fair Haven sun. Romero is one of two local entrepreneurs, launched by Junta’s “One Group” program, which offers micro loans to promising young business people. Romero, originally from Colombia, and in New Haven for four years, got started fashioning her own jewelry for small parties, weddings other occasions, and one was bought by Blanca Paez (to the right in the picture) and a consultant to Junta.
The rest is small entrepreneur history. Romero was already doing very well. Between three and 4:30 she had four sales, each in the $20 range, and another rush of shoppers was expected between five and seven.
In addition to heirloom zucchinis, corn to die for, and all the above, another Junta-sponsored new entrepreneur Ofelia Ramos will be debuting her Colombian empanadas next week. Oh, and the garlic will be in too.
See you there.