Minnesota Prairie Roots

SHOPPING A FARMERS’ market encompasses more than shopping. Here there are people to meet and stories to hear in an outdoor marketplace that embraces the senses. This is an experience. Accompany me on a recent Saturday morning as I talk to some of the vendors at the Faribault Farmers’ Market.

Lois' jellies and pickled beans

Lois is here with her 91-year-old mother, Mary, eager to talk about the jelly she’s made with huckleberries imported from a friend in Whitefish, Montana. In exchange for the huckleberries, Lois and her husband, Ed, ship raspberries west. Lois worked seven hours to make the nine jars of huckleberry jelly she’s selling for $6.50 a jar.

Across the sidewalk, Dennis pushes his “chocolet covered jalapenos,” his “pickeled eggs,” his breads. He’s “Mr. Betty Crocker,” Lois says.

Virgil's lily

Nearby, Virgil showcases sprigs of lilies, buttery yellow and burnt orange, and stalks of gladiolus, unfurling in pale pinks and purples and orange, the colors of a sunset. He has gathered these from his Wetaota Gardens along Cedar Lake. Wetaota, he tells me, means “the lake with many islands.” As I photograph his flowers, Virgil shares that his florals have just garnered more than a dozen ribbons at the Rice County Fair, including grand champion for an Asiatic lily called Virgil. The judges were right; his flowers sing poetic in their beauty.

Paulette's clothespin bags

Around the corner, crafter Paulette sits in a lawn chair reading a mystery by Mary Higgins Clark. I stop, run my hands across the soft flannel pillow cases Paulette sews, admire the straight, even stitches on the clothespin bags she’s made, dress-style cotton bags so flowery and dainty and pretty I think they should be dresses for little girls.

Jewelry at Rhonda's table

Then, I circle Rhonda’s tables, loaded with merchandise—homemade shampoos, lotions, soaps, scrubbies, dish cloths, rugs, jewelry, knit purses and more—crafted by her and two friends.

Chuck's maple syrup

Jirik's maple syrup

Further down, at neighboring tables, Chuck and siblings Erin and Billy, with their mom, peddle maple syrup. “Where is Hill City?” I ask Chuck, who is selling his “Pure Maple Syrup from Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Hill City, MN.” South of Grand Rapids 15 miles, he tells me. His brother Tom has a cabin there and he helps him make the maple syrup. They chose the syrup’s name, he says, for its marketability.

Erin and Billy push their maple syrup, made by dad, Jim. Billy points to a one-pint plastic jug, says he’s missing from the artwork that shows four kids and a dog in a winter scene. He’s the youngest in a family of five siblings and will turn seven on Kolacky Days weekend.

Margaret's kolacky

Margaret, a full-blooded Czech, offers an array of foods that include kolacky in flavors like prune, poppy seed and raspberry. She’s sold all but one of the 35 packages of Czech pastries she’s brought to the market along with cookies, popcorn, jams and honey. I admire the red and white enamel ware pan that holds the last of her oatmeal chocolate chip cookies.

Kathy & Connie's cookies

On my final pass past the stands, I stop to chat with Kathy. She and her friend Connie are seasoned vendors here. They’ve carted dozens and dozens of their homemade cookies (today 13 varieties like oatmeal raisin, peanut butter chocolate chip and molasses), breads and bars to the park. Kathy makes no apology for offering baked goods in a marketplace that brims with healthy, garden fresh produce.

“Chocolate is a vegetable,” she says. And then she laughs.