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Photo By Jymi Bolden
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Visitors to Cincinnati’s historic Findlay Market can buy
baked goods, produce, flowers, meats, cheeses and
seafood. The market house for indoor vendors is in the
background.
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It's the kind of Saturday morning that beckons lovers from their beds. A cerulean blue sky and apple crisp air grin knowingly at me through the window as I shake a Levi leg and hunt under the rumpled sheets for a missing sock. After an executive decision of Nikes without socks and clip for the bed-hair, I grab a couple of empty shopping bags and spill out into the day awaiting. One soy latte and a bus ride later, I'm thrust, heart pumping and head reeling, into the center of the city, an open-air spectacle of nature's diversity.
Mound upon mound of glistening peppers, the pervasive sweet perfume of melons, cabbage heads as big as basketballs, a vendor yelling "one bunch, one dollar!" are the first to arouse my senses. The sound of African drumming weaves among the divergence of culture rubbing shoulders with each other; many in search of the freshest produce, unusual cuts of meat, baguettes baked before the sunrise, stems of exotic flowers, hand-crafted soaps or bundles of fresh herbs. For some, the market is their weekly social: Turbaned women gossip loudly with babies on their hips, four golden-yeared gentlemen contemplate the chess board between them, a group of children dance with abandon to the drumming, several young adults hug and laugh through steaming cups of coffee. Camera-toting visitors; well-heeled socialites; toddlers with a Michael Jordan view from their father's shoulders; pierced, tattooed and tie-dyed teens; toothless shufflers; middle-income, low-income, no-income; Asian, African, Latin and Euro-Americans -- they are all here in the nucleus of urban character and history, here in the pulse of urban creativity.
With such an atmosphere of Old World charm and New World cool, surely this must be a major metropolis, a moving-and-shaking kind of city. Union Square Market in New York City. Nope. Pike Place in Seattle? Haymarket Square in Boston? Baltimore? San Francisco? Philly? No to all. This is the second oldest open-air market in the country: Findlay Market, in the belly of Cincinnati, Ohio.
"Number 33!" the vendor bellows over the buzz of the crowd. "Number 33!" again, even louder. "Here!" a diminutive, elderly woman waves her ticket victoriously. "I'll have two ox hearts and a pound of calves' liver," she practically chirps. She turns to me, looking happy as a pig in the sunshine, proclaiming, "I love organs!"
This strikes me as very funny, on many levels, and I share a good laugh with several others waiting patiently for our numbers to be called. This is the Market House, the main enclosed building of Findlay Market. Long and narrow, it houses approximately 20 different merchants, some in their fourth generation of selling their goods and services.
I feel like a 5-year-old on Christmas morning, standing amid this fortune of world food. Golden bluffs of Greek kasseri, Spanish garroxta, Basque istarra, Finish lappi, Danish butter kase, cheddars from Vermont, Canada, New York and Wisconsin, stacked before me at Krause's.
"How do you want that cut?" the bright-eyed and pony-tailed girl asks in response to my request for three-quarters of a pound of one of my favorite cheeses, a Spanish manchega. She hands me the butcher-papered wedge with a have-a-great-day smile.
Tucking it in my bag, I hustle down to the other end of the Market House to Silverglade's to pick up its companion, a crusty, slightly sourdough baguette from Shadeau Bakery. Silverglade's stands are stuffed with as many customers as the variety of olives on display. I grab my number (Yikes! Eight people in front of me) and stare hard at the last baguette, thinking perhaps a little voodoo would be appropriate right now to insure its place next to the wedge of cheese in my shopping bag. Olives -- 26 kinds -- float in crocks today; familiar varieties like calamata, niçoise, Sicilian, cilaignaro and "boutique" varieties: garlic and pepper seasoned with parmesan, Morrocan sun-dried black olives and red pepper.
A German man, waiting for pickled herring and some specialty sauerkraut, passes the time whistling American Jazz standards. I request some Thelonius Monk, which makes him chortle and snort (I'm a little concerned that he might need the Heimlich maneuver), but an impressive finish garners a round of applause from waiting shoppers.
"Nummmbah 40!" I'm so excited that my baguette is still there I spontaneously let out a little whoop and punch my fist into the air, Rocky-style, which amuses the crowd. But I'm sure they understand: You get connected to the food here.
With lunch tucked under my arm, I flow out into a day so bright I could dip my paintbrush into the autumn noon, past stands with hills of blue velvet plums and fresh figs, delicately diapered in little tissue papers. Two Middle Eastern women appraise the fruit with expert eyes, like art dealers at Sotheby's. Neighborhood kids appeal for me to buy some of their incense and, when I momentarily hesitate, they turn their solicitation into street poetry. I'm a sucker for entertainment and give up my dollar gladly.
The Farmer's Market Shed is my last stop. The Findlay Farm-to-Market program supports small-scale farms by providing local growers opportunities to sell their goods directly to us. This is my favorite section: A feeling of family and higher purpose lives here. Organic produce, heirloom varities -- "Good wholesome agriculture," grower Robert Klouman says. Robert owns K & R Garden Fresh Produce and makes the weekly two-hour drive from Adams County to sell 55 kinds of peppers and eggplants, a gorgeous photogenic display. Not as much of a market exists in Adams County for him and farmer's markets are the only place for small farmers to survive.
"This is the most profitable way to make money from a small farm," says Chris Merkel from Merkel Farms in Osgood, Ind. "If you can grow it, you can sell it here at Findlay -- I sell a full truckload of sweet corn in five hours. I can't do that anywhere else."
He adds, "We love the people that shop here and the diversity. This is a city inside a city." Patty Piatt, owner of The Herbalist agrees. "I lived in Manhattan for 25 years, and Findlay market is the closest New York experience. (It's hard to) think of any other place in Cincinnati where such a diversity of people come together in such harmony."
Dennis Sauerhauge of Backyard Orchard, a grower of heirloom variety, low-spray apples goes one further by employing Over-the-Rhine kids at his stand and fixing up used bikes for them. Tyra, a 10-year-old from "two blocks over" is working with Dennis today, splitting the profits.
Eric Pawlowski, site manager from Impact OTR, sums it up: "We are initiating positive change in the community, expanding ideas of what's possible. This is definitely the place to be on a Saturday morning."
I couldn't agree more. This is the place to be on a Saturday morning, big city life with small village connection, a cornucopia of nature's rich bounty, delicious diversity and urban commitment. ©
