Posted on August 30, 2024
Celebrate Local Foodways at the Bonita Springs Farmers Market
Explore the flavors and stories behind the seasonal market at Promenade at Bonita Bay, where local artisans and farmers share their souls through every homegrown vegetable, mullet dip and artisan ware presented.
by Chanda Jamieson Aug. 28, 2024 4:10 p.m.
As the midday sun sweeps across the Bonita Springs Farmers Market, a young farming family shuffles a slew of strawberry quarts, the berries’ seed-stippled flesh shining like rubies. A bright yellow banner above announces 12 Seasons Farm. The youngest children gather loose heirloom tomatoes from beneath the table, their mouths full of the same brightly colored cultivars, warm from the sun. A vendor from across the market, Pleyoo Microgreens, has made lunch—part of a secret farmers market menu known to regulars (ask most vendors, and they’ll whip something up with foraged market ingredients)—with Pleyoo’s sprouted sunflower and kohlrabi and 12 Seasons’ ripe cherry reds, their juices and seeds pooling in the folds of a crisp baguette from Aux Délices Artisan Bakery and Cafe. The eldest boy raises a hand to an approaching customer and puffs his cheeks as if to signal both an apology and rapture. The woman accepts only the latter. “You are busy being hungry and alive,” she says. Soon, she’ll be doing the same—savoring a home-cooked supper of salted slabs between slices of freshly baked bread, as simple and true as the sun above us. Tucked inside the Promenade at Bonita Bay shopping center, the seasonal Saturday market is one of nine run by Local Roots, a homegrown organization started by Sanibel Island residents Jean Baer and Betsy Feagans Ventura. The market reopens in October for its 12th season, with nearly 60 vendors celebrating local foodways and their stories. I am a small part of it, with my heritage seafood company, The Fisherman’s Daughter.
This is a market full of food and a market full of voices, each eager to tell you about the gardens they grow and the lives they create. Shop here a few times, and you’ll quickly find yourself sinking into the fold, your voice joining the chorus bubbling up and down the market’s aisles. Customers point out their favorites—Turkish robes from The Fouta Spa, Pilar’s authentic Argentinian empanadas, Joe’s plump Gulf shrimp and black mangrove honey from Heritage Pointe. The farmers and makers share their knowledge and love for all things green and growing. They save seeds, graft fruit trees, dig roots and bulbs, fold butter into flour, throw cast nets and raise heritage livestock breeds. The crops cultivated and the foods prepared are all part of a larger tapestry, influenced by a variety of cultures and shaped by the generations that have come before and the communities still emerging—from mangoes to mustard greens, marmalade to meringue.
At 12 Seasons, the tomatoes go first, satisfying farmer Danny Blank’s goal of raising heirlooms worthy of nostalgia, ones that return customers to the gardens of their youth. (Although his grandmother’s tomatoes still hold the bar). “I made it our mission at the farm to bring the garden tomato back to the table—a tomato that bleeds all over the cutting board, that shows you its flavor before you even taste it.” The team organically grows 25 to 30 varieties inside a greenhouse, shielded from Florida’s rain and dew. Danny’s dedication is appreciated at the market and by area chefs at a long list of Naples’ fine dining restaurants, such as Sails, Butcher Private and Rebecca’s.
Founded by environmental biologist Danny Blank, 12 Seasons Farm grows organic vegetables and fruit on the family’s Fort Myers farm. All four kids are involved and often help at the market.
The October-through-May market is filled with small, family operations, like Iris and Christian Foerschner’s European American Bakery Cafe (next). Ask vendors about the ‘secret menu,’ where, at most stalls, you can have the vendor whip up lunch with whatever is in your market bag.
Danny’s children help at the market, a common thread among vendors, with families feeding families throughout. A few stalls over, European Family Bakery’s Iris and Christian Foerschner have raised their children in and out of markets since leaving Germany over 15 years ago. Baking is in their blood—the husband and wife grew up in flour-dusted kitchens, their small footprints now a shadow as their children dance alongside them. Of their seven children, five—aged 5 to 10—still help in the family business. They smear gobs of homemade raspberry jam on star-shaped Linzer cookies, readying the rose-tinted morsels to sell alongside Christian’s black forest cake (a forever favorite) and traditional German pretzels, strudels, croissants and sourdough.
Nearby, at Aux Délices, Remy Gratesol doles out traditional and inventive French treasures. The cafe mirrors European Family Bakery’s philosophy—food as a humble necessity and the highest honor. “My favorite thing to do at the bakery, and in life, is to create, to bring new ideas and new flavors,” he says. Remy’s prized creation is The Chloe, named for his wife. The pastry starts with a remembered cake from culinary school, feuilletine—a crispy, flaky confection made from thin, crumbled, caramelized crepes. Atop, a chocolate dome is filled with a berry puree and chocolate mousse. Another Aux Délices staple, the white chocolate brioche, his uncle’s recipe, is used throughout Bonita Springs for the most delicious French toast.
“Merci, danke, thank you,” echoes throughout the market, each vendor and shopper grateful to build a connection, to know their baker, farmer and fisher. “They feed me with their gratitude and then I go back to the greenhouse, and I grow more. I share more,” says Ileana Perez, owner of Pleyoo MicroGreens, a Bonita market vendor since 2018. In her native Cuba, Ileana’s mother would pass by her bedroom window with a spade in hand and dirt on her knuckles, corn and plantains trailing behind her in a small wagon. Ileana would wash and prepare the freshly pulled vegetables and fruit. She thinks about her mother as she cuts microgreens to order at her stall.
Before the next shopper arrives, Ileana brings her knife to a neighboring vendor, Cowboy Sharp, run by Texas-bred craftsmen Ronnie Taylor and his wife, Colleen—a couple known for their cowboy hats and boots and broad smiles. Ronnie has been working with cutlery for more than 30 years. A gentle hum rises from his stall as he sharpens knives wooled thick with rust. The sound is mesmerizing—an afternoon made suddenly smaller and wider, concentrating the attention of the market as the cowboy strips the blade down to its edge.
Ileana is ready to make another secret sandwich for a customer. “Will you help me with this one?” she asks me. The 12 Seasons children drop off a mess of tomatoes as I borrow wild mushroom and sage olive oil from mushroom master Mr. Fun Guy and pink Himalayan salt from Sarah Pederson of Sage & Indigo Juice Co., a wellness-focused cold-pressed juice and cashew milk bar. Her grounding and nutrient-dense elixirs are stocked with hearty root and cruciferous vegetables in the fall and cooling, hydrating fruits in the summer.
I slice a 12 Seasons tomato and see my grandmother’s hands in my own. The connection moves me, and I remember that our harvest, the fish from our waters, the dough kneaded overnight by generational bakers and artisans provides us with the richest, most pleasurable foods on earth.
Categorized in: Events, News Release
