The Farmer, the Baker, the Tamale Maker—Coming Weekly to a Farmers Market Near You

Portland Farmers Market at PSU is known well beyond our fair city for its lovely location along the downtown Park Blocks and its huge range of purveyors selling everything from beautiful produce to work-of-art pastries, artisan breads and local brews. Less well-known are the close to 20 smaller farmers markets scattered throughout Portland zip codes, from Cedar Mill to St. Johns to the OHSU campus. There are even a few markets known mostly through the local grapevine, including the new Boise-Eliot Market and the Hawthorne Urban Farmers Market at Southeast 43rd and Hawthorne, a market organized by urban farmers in Southeast. Most markets are open through September, some through October.

The “little guy” markets are wonderfully convenient if you live or work nearby and offer the pleasures of an outdoor market minus the big-crowd factor of the large markets. In this third story on Portland markets, we visit King, a mid-size market, and two smaller markets to have a look at what’s new and also learn about the Micro Mercantes tamale microenterprise.

King Farmers Market

Sundays, 10 a.m. – 2 p.m.

It’s the second year for King, one of six markets operated by Portland Farmers Market. Location is the King neighborhood at Northeast 7th & Wygant, adjacent to King Elementary School.

When I saw “Farm.” on a list of vendors for the King Market, the period and the brevity of the name caught my attention. The farm and its farmer, Justin Heilenbach, represent a small but growing breed of farm and farmer in urban areas of the Northwest and other parts of the country, characterized by small plots of land, organic farming methods and young farmers passionate about growing food in an environmentally responsible manner.

Heienbach, 33, farms on one-tenth of an acre, that he leases in the French Prairie area at the north end of the Willamette Valley. His farm is one of about 50 that markets its products with the French Prairie Fresh brand. He’s selling shallots, fresh herbs, chard, kale, collards and more at the King Market—he also sells to Dove Vivi restaurant in Northeast Portland—and is happy to talk about farming and land use issues in between helping customers. In his first season as a solo farmer, he says he’d like to be able to support himself through farming, but he acknowledges the hard work. “The spirit of his farm is to return to the traditional American farm. “I may even try to use draft horses—right now it’s all hand work,” he says with a smile.

Grains from Gee Creek Farm. Photo: Heather Zinger.

Lyle Stanley of Gee Creek Farm in Ridgefield, Washington, has a face that’s familiar to many area farmers market shoppers, including me, as he’s sold to them for years. This is his first full season at King Market. He’s got a wide array of lovely organic vegetables, as before. What’s new this year are packaged organic flours —kamut, barley, spelt, whole wheat pastry and more—as well as cereals and several baking and pancake mixes, some of them gluten- and wheat-free. Stanley is not growing the grains, but he mills them weekly, for freshness, using a mill he’s had for 30 some years. Packaging is a compostable cellophane. Stanley says the products are getting rave reviews. The sample bites of pancake mix were tasty, with plenty of cornmeal.

Also new to King this year is Petunia’s Pies and Pastries, at the PSU and Pioneer Courthouse Square markets, too, with gorgeous desserts that are gluten-free and vegan, On the savory side, Copper Crown Foods is bringing its popular line of pesto sauces to King Market, including a Thai version made with coconut milk instead of cheese.

Missionary Chocolates and Copper Crown Foods. Photos: Heather Zinger.

Not new to the market, but worth a visit for any serious chocolate connoisseur, is Missionary Chocolates, purveyor of creamy, rich vegan truffles in a handful of flavors. Owner Melissa Berry is a local naturopath in her other life. Her truffles are also at the Irvington, Lloyd and Interstate farmers markets.

Kudos to the Northeast Coalition of Neighborhoods for initiating Foodshare Fund Northeast, a program that offers a dollar-for-dollar match (up to $5) to SNAP participants using their EBT cards to purchase $1 tokens at the King Market.

St. Johns Farmers Market

Saturdays, 9 a.m. – 1 p.m.

St. Johns Market, in its second season, fills a plaza in the heart of the old St. Johns business district, at the intersection of North Lombard and North Philadelphia. About a third of this season’s vendors are from Sauvie Island and North Portland.

The new breed of farm and farmer referred to above is represented at this market by two Sauvie Island farms, Sasquatch Acre and Happy Tortoise. Sasquatch Acre is the first farming venture for young farmers Evan Driscoll and Travis Schuster, who are selling an assortment of greens and garlic plus blackberries and eggs. They lease an acre from a larger, certified organic farm. Andrew O'Keefe, another market newcomer, leases land from the same landowner. He’s big on heirloom, hard-to-find veggies and also runs a CSA operation.

Paul Dinberg of Little Gnome Farm in Ridgefield, Washington, is also new to farming. He specializes in heirloom varieties and uses organic methods but is not certified organic. His produce includes tomatoes from his greenhouse, basil, cukes, lettuce, kale and zucchini.

Florio Bakery treats

Moving on from fresh produce, there are hand-crafted sheep milk cheeses from Black Sheep Creamery in Adna, Washington, near Chehalis. Market-goers press forward to sample six flavors of fresh cheeses and several aged cheeses, including a feta, a Manchego-style cheese, a British country-style cheese called Mopsy’s Best and a Pecorino. Black Sheep Creamery is also at the Moreland Farmers Market.

Farmers markets are a great place for specialty meat producers to educate potential customers about their farming methods and the animals they raise. Pine Mountain Ranch is doing that at St. Johns and seven other area markets this season. Located outside of Bend, the ranch raises grass-fed, free-range, hormone- and antibiotic-free lamb, heritage pigs, bison, elk, yak, beef, poultry, rabbits and pastured eggs—with a commitment to humane animal treatment and sustainable farming practices. Whether St. Johns is ready for the exotic meats remains to be seen. Beef and elk are the hot sellers, today.

Something sweet? Carrie Birrer, owner of Florio Bakery, recently transplanted from Southeast Portland to Northeast, has a selection of treats from her retail bakery, including a beautiful peach and blueberry galette as well as cookies, scones and muffins. She also has a fresh fruit juice every week—cantaloupe this week.

Kelly's Num Nums

For a different take on dessert, there’s Kelly’s Num Nums. Kelly Slusher lives in the neighborhood and her specialty is vegan, gluten-free, low-glycemic goodies—cookies and brownies now, soon scones and more.

All three ready-to-eat meal choices are new this year and include BBQ King, cooking up ribs, tacos and chicken on a stick; Zabor, selling chicken, pork and green chili with cheese tamales; and Thai Cottage, with Pad Thai, fried rice and Dim Sum from its neighborhood restaurant of the same name.

Kudos to St. Johns market for its New Partnerships Program, funded by a $3,000 grant from Metro, to reach out to low-income St. Johns residents with food-related education as well as tokens that can be redeemed as cash at the market. Information on this and other assistance programs is on the market web site.

Lents International Farmers Market

Sundays, 9 a.m. – 2 p.m.

This four-year-old market at Southeast 92nd and Foster is a project of Friends of Zenger Farm, a nonprofit educational farm in East Portland, and operates with funding support from the Northwest Health Foundation. Lents is an ethnically diverse neighborhood so market welcome signs are in Russian, Vietnamese and Spanish. Some 30 percent of farmers at the market are also immigrants, and some have participated in Zenger Farm training programs.

Zenger Farm has its own booth at the market staffed by its apprentice farmers. There’s also a weekly community table where backyard farmers and others who don’t need a weekly market stall can sell what they have—and today that’s elephant garlic, cukes, bok choy, broccoli raab and Vietnamese greens grown by Hmong gardeners.

Papalo from Amaro Brothers Produce (left), Vladimir Stadnikov of Stadnikov's Farm. Photos: Heather Zinger.

Stadnikov’s Farm is a new Russian vendor selling beets, onions, lettuce and many kinds of potatoes. Nearby, Amaro Brothers Produce is selling papalo, purslane and tomatillos—common in Mexican cooking—as well as radishes, fava beans, wax peppers and more. Nicolas and Norma Amara and Sabino and Reyna Amaro have been farming in Forest Grove and Hillsboro for six years. They’ve been selling at the Forest Grove Farmers Market.

A name like Amaranth seems to fit right into a farmers market. Amaranth Ryn Wilson, is the baking whiz behind Ammie’s Goodies, and she’s selling—yes, there is definitely a trend here—gluten- and dairy-free breads and pastries. The selection today includes brownies with cranberries and walnuts, a fresh blackberry and apricot cake, fresh corn muffins and baguettes. A new business owner, she’s also at three other farmers markets.

Coffee by the cup is what Todd Weiler serves up Nectar Coffee Company. He's a coffee industry veteran and roasts his own beans. He also sells whole beans at the market and to several cafes.

Tamales lovers are in luck at Lents. As of late July the market had only one meal vendor, the popular Micro Mercantes that caters to tamale lovers at 11 area markets. On the day I visited, Rosa Govea and her niece, Karen Benitez, 15, were selling tamales—pork, chicken and cheese/jalapeno—as well as cantaloupe and watermelon juices they had made the day before. Govea, who also works at Safeway, has been part of the Micro Mercantes program for three years.

Kudos to Lents Market for its Healthy Rewards program offering a dollar-for-dollar match (up to $5) to SNAP participants and for its efforts to suppot the diversity of the Lents neighborhood through vendors and customers.

Micro Mercantes—11 Markets, 10 Families, Thousands of Tamales

I’m more partial to burritos than tamales, truth be told, but I’ve been intrigued by the Hispanic women selling tamales and fresh juices under the familiar Micro Mercantes sign at local farmers markets. So I had a chat with Nathan Teske, economic development director for Hacienda Community Development Corporation, which began the tamales microenterprise in 2005.

Nearly all Micro Mercantes participants are residents of Hacienda's affordable rental housing communities in Northeast Portland, and Hispanic immigrants of very low-income and limited English proficiency. Most of them are mothers paired with adult daughters. Each pair buys its own ingredients and uses Hacienda’s commercial kitchen to prepare their food. They are free to use slightly different recipes. The women rotate through the markets during the season, with the biggest markets enabling them to sell up to 500 a day. Families typically earn between $12,000 to $15,000 per season.

According to Teske, the program is “designed to be a small business incubator to get people to start their own businesses, and a few have started their own ventures.” Before they sell their first tamale, Hacienda gives them a seven-week business class to help them manage their earnings and prepare them to one day become business owners.

If you like the idea of eating tamales and supporting a worthy enterprise, go to the program’s web site for a list of farmers market locations, information about catering and tamales cooking classes, and a short documentary about the program and vendors.