Experiment, Shop And Meet People

Nettle tea (Urtica Dioica). “Try it,” Ben Schwartz, a farmer from Wassaic, urges. “It’s good for the blood,” he says. “Lowers your cholesterol. Good for allergies, too.” Barbara Adelberg of Sharon, one of the many people at the Millerton Farmers Market season opener, Saturday, pours a sample of murky, sea-green liquid into a tiny paper cup. “Hmmmm,” she says. I try it too. “Hmmmmm.” It tastes green, we decide, and figure the mint tea (Mentha Spicata which “cools and soothes aches and upsets”) is an easier swallow. Near Schwartz and his teas and baby kale, Kayla Brazie was selling Coach Farm goat cheese, and cultured goat’s milk marked “probiotic.” She was not sure what probiotic was except that it’s good for you. Roberto Flores of Good Dogs Farm in Ashley Falls, MA, (originally three dogs, now two live there, both standard poodles, brown) had a splendid display of produce. “Hard work,” I say. “Not as hard as owning a 60-room inn in Lenox,” he replies. After 15 years of innkeeping with 26 weddings annually and all the attendant mothers and brides, Flores figured he’d had enough. So he quit the hospitality industry to be a farmer. Farmers markets are great social spots, too. That’s where I ran into Wesley Mittman Lepatner who was just Wesley Mittman, a junior at Horace Mann in New York City when she became The Lakeville Journal’s first summer intern in 1997. She remembered it all fondly, of course. After interning, she went to Yale and studied history and got a job in the real estate division of Goldman Sachs. And they say newspaper jobs are deadend alleys. And of course the monarch of natural farming, Dominic Palumbo of Moon in the Pond Farm in Sheffield, MA, was there to promote good eating and sustainable agriculture. Always alert to new income streams for farmers, he will be introducing sauerkraut as a “value added commodity” this summer, as soon as the cabbage crop comes in. The award for most absolutely gorgeous stand went to Double Decker Farm in Hillsdale, NY, with a staggering display of dahlias and begonia blossoms, all huge and brilliant and sweet smelling. A little later in the season, Kevin Decker said, the farm will be bringing in vegetables. The Millerton Farmers Market with numerous nearby producers offers vegetables, fruits, flowers, even wine, pastries and cheeses. The market runs from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Dutchess Avenue and Main Street in Millerton, NY, every Saturday through Oct. 29.