IN SEASON Making farm-to-table connections at the Farmers Market @ St. Stephen’s By Mary Scott Hardaway More often than not we imagine our area farmers to be hard working, friendly enigmas. We understand that they’re up before the sun, tilling and planting and tending to the in-season delicacies we find on the menus of the finest local establishments. We assume they eat tomatoes off the vine and ramps straight from the soil, subsisting off the land like their mothers before them, and their mothers before them. They’re the kind of people we know exist, with their dirtrimmed cuticles and faded flannel coveralls, though we aren’t sure if we’ve actually ever seen one before. Except, maybe, at the farmers market. This year, one of the area’s biggest markets, formerly known as South of the James and located in Forest Hill Park, changed its name, appropriately, to RVA Big Market and moved its Saturday morning market to a new home in Bryan Park, though it will still operate a Thursday night market at the Forest Hill location. In addition to RVA Big Market, there are more than a halfdozen farmers markets in the greater Richmond region now in full swing, including the mid-sized Farmers Market @ St. Stephen’s. For more than a decade, this market has been quietly
operating year-round at 6000 Grove Ave., boasting a variety of vendors who come for the sense of community and then return, season after season, every Saturday morning. MAKING CONNECTIONS Chef Mela Jones has been frequenting the stall of F.J. Medina & Sons Farm for years now. “She tolerates when I email her on a Friday night and say, ‘Hey, I need 30 pounds of asparagus,” Jones says. “She never says no, I mean most people will give her more advance notice.” Karla Medina has been a mainstay at the Farmers Market @ St. Stephen’s for “eight to 10 years.” Medina’s husband Francisco grew up farming, and when his father passed away in 2006 the Medina family farm was divided among the brothers. “I just learned from him,” Medina says. “He has the green thumb and the knowledge–and it changes every year. He keeps track of everything in his own calendars from past planting seasons, noting how the weather changes, what’s growing.” Karla and Francisco, along with help from their two sons and a handful of full- and part-time workers, operate 35 acres in Montross, Virginia, growing things as varied as rainbow chard and oregano. Every Wednesday through Sunday from April to November, Medina is on the road, setting up the family’s farm stand at 10 markets around the state, from Annandale to Charlottesville to Richmond.
From the May 18, 2021 edition of Style Weekly. Reprinted with permission. 26 403073_Newsletter.indd 26
SEASONS OF THE SPIRIT
9/7/21 7:51 AM
