The Quilt Inn Country Cookbook

Aliske Webb

September Fair

Once a month on a Saturday from early Spring untillate Autumn, we engage in

a ritual of going into downtown Clareville to visit the Farmer’s Market that takes place

in the Town Square. There, midst the tall oaks and maples, between the bandshell and

the fountain, citizens of the area arrive at dawn to exhibit and sell their wares. Tents

and tables litter the greenspace in orderly confusion.

I like to be first and early at the Market. In the near dark morning, Michael and

I sip coffee seated in a window booth at Ivy’s Restaurant while the vendors set up. The

dawn chorus of birds vie with a portable radio and good humored neighborly chatter

echoes in the still and frosty air. Chickens cackle in their cages and an irritable rooster

is barking at the morning. The few early birds come to the Market for the fattest worms:

the pick of the best produce—the plumpest peppers, the unblemished tomatoes, bread

still warm from the oven to be sniffed and savored and carried home as prizes. We are

still hunters and gatherers who return triumphant and satisfied from a good forage.

The rest of the flock descends by late morning. By then the Square is full and

frantic. Hands dart here and there, quickly picking goods, making change, filling bags.

Shoulders jostle to the stalls and tables, and jostle away again. Friends meet and chat,

some hug, balancing parcels, blocking the way of others trying to gain access to the

vendor’s attention—a pleasant communal irritation.

Some swoop in—if they find a lucky parking spot—raid the essential stalls, list

in hand, and swoop away again. Some come to roost all day. Making their way

systematically from vendor to familiar vendor, chatting, sampling, buying. Stopping to

lunch on thick cut peameal bacon on a kaiser as a special not-on-the-diet treat; or on

quiche and wine at the trendy Stone House Inn; or on toasted club sandwiches at Ivy’s

cafe in the park, a temporary fair weather al fresco extension served from her

restaurant across the street. The black-brown and black-blue grackles have landed en

masse on the green and are having their own lively disagreement.

By late afternoon, the hustle and hurry has slowed to a tired and langorous

saunter. Vendors rearrange the last of the unsold wares to show to their best

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Country Cooking