DURHAM FARMERS’ MARKET
Mondays, 2:15 to 5:30
Mill Road Plaza

If farmers and bakers can find time to read during their busiest season (start work before sunrise, finish after sunset), you know you’ve got some serious readers on your hands.

In the spirit of the back-to-school season, here’s a rundown of what some of our vendors have been reading this summer to keep their minds as fresh as their food:

Celeste at
45 Market Street Bakery & Cafe
Sleeping Naked Is Green
Eat More Dirt: Diverting & Instructive Tips for Growing and Tending an Organic Garden

Davyanne at Moriarty’s Greenhouse
Blue Dahlia
Farm Fresh Murder (This is a murder mystery set at a farmers’ market. “That’s how you know you’ve made it to the big time,” she says. “They start writing murder mysteries about you!”)

Jean at Meadow’s Mirth
The Wire!

Carolyn at Ramsbotham’s Riverview Farm
A customer from the Portsmouth Market brought a lovely antique book about flowers to Carolyn this summer, which she has been savoring. The book is really nice, Carolyn says, but the fact that a customer thought of her when she saw it was her favorite part.

Deb at Sugarmomma’s Maple Farm 
Cooking magazines! Taste of Home and Taste of the South are a couple of her favorites, but if it’s a cooking magazine, she’ll read it … and probably collect it, too.

Nate at Applecrest Farm Orchards
The Sun Also Rises (and if you’d like to chat with Nate about this Hemingway classic, Matt is pretty sure he could talk about it all day long.)

Matt at Applecrest Farm Orchards
The Alchemist

Abby at Wake Robin Farm
The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest

Who’s Your Farmer?

NOTTINGHAM ORCHARD
Durham & Portsmouth Markets

Mark and Katy Hiza
(603) 679-5524
katyhiza@hotmail.com

Mark and Katy Hiza know how to go with the flow.

This year’s frost on May 10 hit their peach and apple orchards hard, wiping out no less than 95% of this fall’s fruit crops. But that hasn’t kept them down. They’re at market this summer with a taste of last year’s harvest: hard cider.

Last winter, Mark and Katy set about fermenting and bottling their regular apple cider to help supplement this year’s fresh fruit crops. Although it’s certainly disappointing that the cider is their only “crop” this season, they sure are pleased with how popular their inaugural batch has been. You can be sure they’ll make it again.

But you better be sure to find them at market soon, because it’s selling fast.

Who’s Your Farmer?
Rolling in Peaches

MCKENZIE’S FARM
Portsmouth Market

Annie & Jock McKenzie
(603) 652-9400

mckenziesfarm@hotmail.com
www.mckenziesfarm.com
Peach season has officially begun at McKenzie’s Farm in Milton, and they’re bringing about 300 pounds of it every week to Portsmouth. The large, sweet Red Haven variety that’s practically falling of the trees right now is considered the first free-stone* peach, according to Brett McKenzie. That’s what his dad Jock tells him, anyway, and Jock would know: he holds a degree in Agriculture and has been running McKenzie’s for 25 years.

For his part, Brett studied business in Florida, and has returned home to help run the family farm. He’s happy about the peach harvest this year because it’s a new crop for McKenzie’s. Mostly though, he’s happy that apple season is also starting. It’s his favorite time of year with tractor rides, fresh cider, a hay maze, and those tasty Honey Crisps. “It’s the sweetest, most delicious, juicy apple you could ever eat,” Brett says, “and it’s rare to find a farm that grows them.”

We’ll have to wait a while for the Honey Crisps to come in—probably in September—but for now you can head to McKenzie’s booth for Paula Red apples, as well as their famous tomatoes and all the fabulous veggies they grow.

* A free-stone peach, by the way, means that the peach pit is loose inside the fruit. That makes it easier to eat all the juicy goodness, and easier to process. Peach canning party, anyone?

Who Makes Your Donuts?
A Family Tradition 

TONI’S DONUTS
Exeter and Portsmouth Markets

Barbara Lemieux
(603) 332-2640

Barbara Lemieux couldn’t have guessed when her mother taught her how to bake that she would end up making a living at the farmers’ markets. In fact, Barbara says, until her husband died, she never wanted to set up shop at the markets at all.

“I didn’t know what I was missing,” she says. This former housewife can now be found spring, summer and fall holding court at her market booth in Exeter and Portsmouth, and she loves it. “It’s a fun way to make a living,” she says.

Toni’s Donuts has been in business for 30 years now, and time will tell if it Barbara’s daughters will pick up the torch when she’s ready to pass it on. Rest assured, though, that their family tradition of one generation teaching the next is alive and well.

August 17 Cooking Demonstration in Hampton