Back for a second year, the Oak Lawn Farmers Market gives Dallas’ gayborhood a fresh take on food
FARM FRESH | All the fruits and vegetables canned by Diana Loring, top, are hand-chopped in North Texas; the produce from Baugh Farms in Canton, below, is picked and loaded the Friday before delivery; and even the bath and beauty products sold by gay-owned Beau Tye, bottom, are made from sustainable sources and all petroleum-free. (Arnold Wayne Jones/Dallas Voice)
ARNOLD WAYNE JONES | Executive Editor
Our peaches are small,” says the farmer from Southeast Collin County, having picked the fruit from her own mother’s trees, “but that’s because we don’t use any fertilizers. It’s all organic.”
You get the sense that the vendors — farmers, candle-makers, cooks, canners and soap-makers among them — who take a booth at the Oak Lawn Farmers Market are used to being both entrepreneur and educator. They not only have to attract customers, they have to explain to them why their produce and other products are worth the premium.
Consider: One single juicy Cherokee purple heirloom tomato from Baugh Farms can set you back several dollars. One. But look at it — dusky, earthen-colored and ripe with green shoulders, almost pregnant with succulent, scarlet flesh inside. (It clocks in at about a pound on the scale.) This isn’t just a fruit meant to garnish a hamburger or disguise within a salad; it’s a meal in itself.
That’s the kind of excitement you can find at the OLFM, a summer pop-up located in the open lot behind the Oak Lawn United Methodist
Church near the intersection of Cedar Springs and Oak Lawn. It’s a brief window — just three months (it will end by September) between 8 a.m. and noon on Saturdays only. Now in its second year, though, it has already become a welcome addition to the gayborhood.
Charlie Baugh, the son who mans the OLFM stand for his parents’ Canton farm, is in his second year here, and while there’s room for the market to expand, he’s been pleased by the repeat business. (The Baugh family also sets up shop at the markets near Trinity Groves, in McKinney and elsewhere around North Texas. “Fridays are chaos,” he drawls in a soft East Texas accent.)
Designs by Diana’s Diana Loring, another regular, does a steady business selling her homemade preserves, jellies, relishes and salsas. All are hand-chopped, from the fruits in the jams to the corn in the chow-chow to the cucumbers in the pickles.
“My grandmother taught me to can at an early age, and now I [produce] about 200 cans a week,” she says.
The variety Loring offers is staggering, from her own favorite, strawberry jelly (sometimes gussied up with jalapeno, rhubarb or other items), to her “SweetFire,” a proprietary blend of pickled peppers that is so versatile it can be added to everything from an omelet to a pizza to a burger, to make the most ordinary meal come alive. And best of all, you know the very person who made it for you.
“The spices and herbs I used are from my garden,” Loring says. (She sources the fruits and vegetables locally as well, some grown on her own property.) And because most sellers here have to look you in the eye, they tend to give you the best. Loring was expecting to have her fig preserves ready by the end of June, but when they weren’t up to her standards, she held off picking them (they could be available as early as next week).
It’s not just food sellers who enjoy the OLFM. Beau Tye, the gay-owned Dallas company that produces hand-made beauty and body products from shaving balms to fragrances to bath salts and lotions, is also in its second year here. “It’s a great location,” says George, who’s manning the booth this week. “There’s a density of people who don’t want to go downtown and fight for parking. We’ve thought for years that Oak Lawn needed a farmer’s market — it’s so walkable. But people need to find out about us!”
It’s a natural fit for a farmer’s market to sell such artisan items, even if they aren’t edibles. Products are from sustainable sources with no petroleum in any of the formulations, designed especially by founder Tye Shirley because of his own skin sensitivities. (In addition to exotic aromatics, they even offer fragrance-free soaps.)
That’s true also of some of the other sellers here. One booth is occupied by a man selling room-deodorizing rocks; another has collectibles; yet another woman here repurposes old clothes (T-shirts, jeans, etc.) into hand-stitched new items, from aprons to recyclable grocery bags.
Have an old T from an AIDS walk you never wear but don’t wanna throw away? Bring it by and she’ll turn it into something useable.
The nature of the people who sell at OLFM is much the same as the kind of people who would shop here: Those interested in health, in nature, in organic and sustainable products for the planet and the body.
For anyone potentially put off by what you think might be sticker shock, don’t worry about that too much. One farmer last week was ready to deal quickly on squash because its in too-great abundance at the moment and will spoil if she doesn’t move it; she’ll also put together a good deal for you at the end of the selling day — the produce equivalent of a baker’s dozen. And the price you put on freshness and quality is something only you can judge.
This article appeared in the Dallas Voice print edition July 4, 2014.