Baked goods galore at BT farmers market

Under cloudy skies and sheltering from the wind, four vendors offered smiles, baked goods, and award-winning jelly on the opening day of the Big Timber Farmers Market.

"We'll have more vendors as the season gets going," promised market manager Shona Wieting.

When the Hutterites start bringing vegetables, beginning next week if the weather is better, more customers will appear as well.

Meanwhile, today there were plenty of freshly baked pies, cinnamon twists, rolls, loaves of bread, doughnuts, lemon bars, and brownies to choose from. I bought a few things to bring home for myself.

You gotta love these ladies who get up at 4:30 a.m. to bring the lucky citizens of Big Timber warm goodies fresh from their ovens.

Be sure to visit them sometime this season. But get there early. On a pleasant summer day, those cinnamon rolls sell out quickly.

Big Timber Farmers Market

West 1st Ave & Hart Street, across from American Bank

June 14 - September 27 (depending on weather)

Saturday, 9 am - 1 pm

Farewell, Johnny

Today was the last day of business for Johnny's, a small coffeehouse in Big Timber.

Businesses come and go, but in a small town (Big Timber's population is just over 1,700) losing any business can create a large gap, not necessarily in terms of real estate but rather in the heart.

People who pass through, if they notice at all, will think it is just another empty building. Locals will think about the good times they had there behind those blank windows where the OPEN sign will never be turned on again.

The hot cups of coffee and tea, breakfast burritos and tacos for lunch, the backgammon games, the chance to meet with friends and neighbors or chat with Johnny . . . these are now memories.

When Johnny's opened in April 2013, Scott Romsos (aka Johnny) had big dreams: create a community around fresh food, backgammon championships, maybe some evening music.

But dreams take hard work -- and enough money -- and although Johnny put in his fair share, it turned out to be too much for one person.

Even with the hardest work, a broad customer base is also necessary. "There just aren't enough people [in Big Timber]. You need a bigger group of people to come in and drink the coffee," Johnny said.

But in fact, food was the biggest draw for customers.

"You can't do it just with coffee. I really wanted to do food that was fresh and healthy and homemade, handmade, instead of just taking something and putting it in a microwave. The flip side of that, though, is with me being the only person in here, it was a lot of work. Long, long hours in here."

Yet Johnny wasn't quite alone. There was that community he was striving to build.

"I'm one hundred percent an elementary school teacher. I've never gone into a restaurant, never cooked, never done coffee before, never owned a business before. So this was all basically starting at square number zero. But I would say, one of the beautiful things about being in Big Timber is there were people who would come in, and as I built up a rapport with people, I would start asking questions about business, especially the food side of things. And people were just really, really open and helpful."

For example, "when you're making a burrito, you need to know what your cost is, for everything. Onions, potatoes, meat, eggs. Beforehand, just cooking for myself, I would just kind of grab. The way I like to cook is go into the refrigerator and see what's there and throw something together. So that was the biggest piece of advice I got."

Johnny's fresh tacos were a big hit.

Johnny is both philosophical and practical about the closure.

"I just really like talking to people. That was hands down the best part of this job. I feel like I really poured myself into this place. So [closing] wasn't something I really wanted to do. But I just couldn't go on anymore, with barely breaking even every month."

Despite the closure of his business, Johnny has no regrets about having given it a try. He's looking forward to the future: Maybe go back to teaching elementary school, perhaps overseas. Do a little fishing.

We'll miss you, Johnny, but we wish you the best of luck. May the fish be always near and hungry.

Tom Tochihara, RIP

It was a sad day for Big Timber when 92-year-old Tom Tochihara died on April 23.

Tom (born August 5, 1920) had a long history of growing food, which in his last years he did abundantly in the Big Timber community garden and in a private garden elsewhere in town. He sold his fresh, organic produce at the Big Timber farmers market and gave it away to places like the food bank and the nursing home.

Tom was friendly and generous. He was always willing to help new gardeners improve their skills, for example, carefully showing them how to dig a trench for keeping water between rows of lettuce. His own greens overran the community garden and filled four plots, spilling over around the tool shed. His were the first and last plants of the season, making other gardeners wonder how he did it.

Between hoeing and watering, he spent many garden hours sitting and soaking up the sun, cigarette in hand. Smoking is not allowed in the garden area, but sometimes you just have to make an exception!

In his earlier days, he farmed in Colorado and did landscaping in California, and during World War Two he served in the Military Intelligence Service as an interpreter for Japanese POWs. In 2010, Tom was part of a group of Nisei soldiers awarded the Congressional Gold Medal for "extraordinary service." The ceremony in Big Timber where he received his replica medal was held on February 19, 2012, the Day of Remembrance for Japanese-Americans, and was well attended by local citizens.

It's difficult to describe how much he was loved by Big Timber folk, who saw him driving through town -- carefully and slowly -- in his white Toyota station wagon topped with a pile of tools, for of course he was always heading toward the garden.

His son and daughter-in-law, Rod and Christine Tochihara, are planning to use Tom's garden plots and seeds to grow produce for the food bank in his honor. So Tom continues to feed people.

Market season is underway!

New in 2012, the Big Timber Kraft and Farmers Market began today under grey clouds. But spirits were bright, with most of the 8 vendors saying the day had been pretty good for them.

The market has a good location right on the main highway into town, and clear signage points the way at each end of town, so no doubt more customers will arrive as the summer season gets underway.

Today there were two tables piled high with delectable baked goods, with plenty of pies, rolls, and the ever welcome maple bars. Some tomato plants were being sold, a reminder that early markets are a good place to stock your Montana garden.

There was also a good selection of crafts available, including jewelry, pottery, blankets, and crocheted items.

Market manager Shona Wieting made sure to add "kraft" to the market name to allow for a wide variety of goods sold.

Shona is known at local markets as the Berry Bandit, with her jellies made from mostly foraged fruits. Because she makes her jellies from scratch each year for market season, Shona often has her freezer full of fruits she's found throughout the year: grapes from a back yard, apples and plums from abandoned trees, chokecherries from wild bushes in the area.

She explained that she picks 50-100 gallons each year to make chokecherry jelly and syrup. In general, she carries a stick with a hook at the end so she can grab high branches of trees or bushes, but she also uses it to prod the ground around the place she will be picking, checking for rattlesnakes.

She's happy to leave fruits or berries for any bears that appear, preferring to flee rather than fight for her share. One year she felt the skin on the back of her neck prickle; something was watching her. It turned out to be a baby bear whose mother had been killed on the nearby highway. Shona left quickly, figuring the bear needed the chokecherries more than she did.

Shona proudly displays the first-place award she received for her chokecherry jelly at the 2011 Lewistown Chokecherry Festival. There's a lot of tough competition at that festival, so this is indeed an honor.

Stan and Norma from Wilsall appear at many area markets selling their odds and ends of imaginative items. For example, you can find many people selling lights stuffed into wine bottles, but Stan found a giant beer bottle for something different.

Stan also showed me the spinning wheel he refurbished, figuring out how to create new parts by looking at pictures of other wheels. At $200, you're getting a real bargain.

It was Stan who reminded me why vendors sit in the hot sun at farmers markets, even when they're not making much money. "You meet nice people, that's the thing," he said.

Yes, you do meet nice people. Be sure to visit as many farmers markets as you can this year!

Big Timber Kraft and Farmers Market

West 1st Ave & Hart Street, next to Car Quest and across from American Bank

June 2 - September (depending on weather)

Saturday, 9 am - 1 pm

Treat yourself at the Big Timber Christmas bazaar

Many people look forward to the annual Big Timber Woman's Club Christmas Bazaar, the first holiday event of the area. Vendors expect to sell a lot of their products, the Woman's Club raises money for their philanthropic activities, and customers have many wonderful items to look at and buy.

The bazaar is so big that it fills both the Big Timber civic center and the American Legion. The season's first snow began falling today, but that didn't stop the shoppers.

This year there were several fundraisers going on. The Friends of the Carnegie Library in Big Timber offered a cart of book selections, along with an abundant table covered with handmade cookies and candies.

The First Congregational Church also had a table with tempting homemade goodies.

The Big Timber chapter of an organization called PEO was raising money to provide scholarships to help women of all ages get the education they need. Their lovely slogan is: "Women helping women reach for the stars." Along with a pile o' yummy homemade foods for sale, they were raffling off a dollhouse made by a member's father. I hope they raised a lot of money from that raffle because the house was amazing. I just wanted to stand there drooling over the detail.

And no event in Big Timber seems complete without the Sons of Norway selling lefse and Norwegian cookies. I've said this before, but I really think they should change their name to Daughters of Norway because I've only ever met the hardworking women.

Nor does any event seem complete without a few regular vendors, among them one of my favorites, Jolie. She usually has her handmade lollies for sale, but unfortunately she didn't have enough time to make them this year. So the choices on her table were lefse, cookies, and caramel corn. Good choices, of course, but we want your lollies, too, Jolie!

Another vendor I look for each year at this bazaar is Liz with her Windy Wheat Bakery inventory. I was especially looking forward to the Buckeyes, but Liz said they hadn't been selling well, so she skipped that this year. Buckeyes were new to me the first time I tasted them, but then they became a top hit in my book. Who can resist peanut butter and chocolate? Next time you see Liz (the rest of the year she's making great-tasting lattes at the Crazy Bean in Big Timber), tell her we want our Buckeyes!

Another ever-present and much welcome vendor anywhere there's a food event is Tumblewood Teas. Riza has some clever new products that would make nice gifts.

Her new line of tea accoutrements includes wooden-edged tea strainers and honey stirrers, all made of cherry wood. I really like the honey stirrers, which are a small size (most are too big for the little taste I usually want) and have holes in them the shape of the comb. "Bee-friendly," Riza calls them.

She also now offers honey sticks, which will be sold in a high school fundraiser later in the year.

There were a few new products, including truffles by 70-year-old Norie, who makes them by hand in Belgrade. You can also find Norie's Candies at her new shop near Albertsons, 7001 Jackrabbit Lane, Suite D, Belgrade. Norie has been making these candies all her life, but successfully went commercial 4 years ago.

Jill Gibbs of Billings was kind enough to remember that dogs like treats, too. You can buy her Jillcookies online via Facebook: facebook.com/pages/Jillcookies.

And last here in the list, but not at all least, was a fun find: Dalonda's Western Country Gift Baskets. Her table was a feast for the eyes, with baskets bursting with all sorts of delightful treats. Many items could be bought separately, of course, and I zeroed in on the red velvet cake pops and brownie bites. From what I've been reading on the Internet, cake pops are quite popular now (with special thanks to Bakerella), but I'd never tasted them. Verdict: red velvet cake pop is yum!

Another item was Dalonda's homemade dip mixes and beverage mixes, including one for bacon cocoa. Dalonda explained this mix has bacon powder in it. I haven't tasted it yet, so I'll have to give a report in a later blog.

Well, there was a whole lot more to eat and look at. You're just going to have to come and check it out yourself next year -- the first weekend of November, 9 am to 5 pm.

Picture yourself with flowers

Such a lovely day for going to market today!

Big Timber Farmers Market
City park, McLeod and 8th
July 2 - September 24
Saturday, 9 am - noon

Big Timber market opens in new location

Due to a short growing season, farmers markets in eastern Montana start rather late in the summer. Today the Big Timber farmers market opened just in time for the Fourth of July and in its new location in the city park at the south end of town.

It was a small market today, but vendors told me that customers were steadily passing through. I arrived at 10 am and saw Tom Tochihara, the 90-year-old Big Timber gardening legend, already packing up after having sold his much sought after spinach and tomatoes.

Sadly, Tom's was the only produce today, but there were plenty of other goodies to enjoy. My personal favorite, maple sticks (also known as maple bars), were back.

Jackie was at market with homemade bread and cookies and her fabulous soap. Her daughter brought pet bunnies for sale, which were very cuddly; here you see one being admired by a young customer.

In addition, there were lovely baskets, potholders, and other crafts all waiting for some lucky buyer to take them home for reasonable prices.

The new setting in the park allows folks to sit in the shade and chat. If you do feel too hot, the park's outdoor swimming pool is a few steps away.

Also new this year is music in the gazebo, organized by talented local musicians. If you just want to come for the music, that would be well worth your time.

There will no doubt be more vendors in coming weeks. Stop by to see what might be happening when you get there.

Big Timber Farmers Market
City park, McLeod and 8th
July 2 - September 24
Saturday, 9 am - noon

Maple sticks and more

I'll start with the "more" and get to the food in a bit.

For Americans, 9/11 symbolizes the strength of the nation and our ever-resilient optimism. When things look bleak, somehow we keep going.

Of course this is also a human characteristic, but all too often we forget it in our everyday lives. Recently, I battled pack rats invading my home. One climbed in through the kitchen chimney, another jumped into my bedroom at 2 a.m. through a hole in my closet (screaming did not make it go away), and others chewed in walls and under floorboards and generally terrorized me.

Setting out bait traps and filling in obvious holes helped a lot. I haven't heard chewing or rampaging across the attic for a couple of weeks now.

I learned a whole lot about what fear does to a person, how friends, even distant friends, can mean the world to you, and that small doesn't mean inconsequential. Yes, pack rats are small -- about the size of a gerbil -- but they can really upset a household.

Today I was thinking about the brave heroes of the 9/11 attacks, and when I got home I saw an ant dragging a huge tuft of what looked like pack rat fur across my porch. (See photo above.) I was astounded at this minuscule creature's tenacity. Wherever it thought it was taking that fur I don't know, but it was willing to cross hell and high water to get there. I salute the ant!

I stopped to take a picture of a flag waving on a ranch (flags were everywhere today) . . .

. . . and when I climbed back into my car, a grasshopper was on the windshield looking as if it were flying.

Hurrah for bright flapping flags and joy!

Which brings me right into the subject of maple sticks, which I learned today is another name for maple bars.

Tanya Clark of Reed Point makes the best. I found her at the Big Timber farmers market and bought several. They are freshly made, chewy, and mapley. Tanya told me her secret might be that she does not use nutmeg, which many recipes call for. She thought that might be what gives store-bought bars that slight "bite."

It also helps that she has been cooking since she was three years old. "And I have the picture to prove it. I'm standing on a chair with flour all over." Tanya has been baking for farmers markets for four years and so has generally learned what sells and what doesn't, although there continues to be some trial and error.

"Sometimes I take home ten loaves of zucchini bread," she said. "I don't like that. Nobody in my family likes zucchini bread."

I know it shouldn't surprise me to learn there are many names for any food, but in Seattle, where I grew up, I always knew my favorite doughnut as a maple bar. Today was the first time I heard them called "sticks." Tanya says her mom, who grew up in central Montana, called them that.

I mentioned that I thought people on the East Coast might know them as Long Johns, and Tanya started laughing. She said a man had come to her table one day and asked what flavor her Long Johns were.

Er, well, in Montana, we wear long johns under our clothes when it gets cold. It took Tanya a moment to realize he was asking about the doughnuts.

Whatever you call them, I think you should get to the Big Timber farmers market and buy some.

Blustery day in Big Timber

The rain fell is big squirts this morning but that didn't stop vendors and customers from enjoying the farmers market.

There were lots of treats, beginning with background music by Hannah. She told me she's been playing for "three or four years." I haven't heard a piano at any other market, so this is a good reason to come here to listen for yourself.

Another rare sighting at farmers markets was of maple bars. When I got home, I hurriedly bit into one. I consider myself somewhat of a connoisseur of these delectable doughnuts, and these were . . . superb! In fact, best I've eaten simply because they are homemade: chewy, doughy, and not overly sweet. Oh, yes, and there were other baked goods as well.

Ninety-year-old Tom was at the market, too, with a nice selection of his produce grown in the community garden. Tom's section of the garden seems to expand over the course of the season; he can't stop hoeing and watering! Any leftovers of his market produce go to the local food bank, where it is welcomed with open arms.

The First Congregational Church decided to come to the market this year with organic free trade coffee and tea. They sell these items as a fund-raiser all year. Christy Mosness, who manned, or rather, womanned, the booth today explained that anything organic just seemed to belong at the farmers market. Next week she said they will try selling hot cups of coffee as samples and provide chairs so people can sit down and enjoy all the baked goods as well right on the spot.

You can see a lot of smiles in the photos I took today. It was a very happy atmosphere. Vendors told me they attributed that to Austin Alexander, who is managing the market for the first time this year as part of an internship for a college course. She isn't sure she'll be able to return for the 2011 season, but the vendors I talked to hope she does. It's a small market, with an average of 10 vendors, but the role of the manager is huge.

In the photo, Austin is on the left, holding a loaf of Abby's (on right) popular zucchini bread. Abby has been bringing homegrown produce and her family's lamb meat to the market since she was 13. She's off to college this year, so who knows what the future will bring, but eager customers -- while wishing her all success in life -- hope she will return to market with her fine products.

Big Timber Farmers Market

Grand Hotel parking lot, at Anderson and Second

July 10 - September 11

Saturday, 9 am - noon