Hopkinton Farmers Market is Fair for Unusual Fare

Buffy Cave, who runs the Hopkinton Farmers Market at Weston Nurseries, Holistic Treasures in Framingham and is a licensed massage therapist has her hands in everything! No joke.

"It's the tactile feeling," she says.

Besides making pottery and making people relax, Buffy makes jewelry from microscopic silver particles reclaimed from photographic processing.

She forms her hands to indicate a golf-ball size lump which she gets from a supplier, separates and rolls into necklaces or pendants, including really cool ones pressed in the shape of ornate drawer pulls. (Sorry Buffy, the photos are blurry!)

Asked what makes a good jam or jelly, Mike Sherman says "liking what you're doing!"

Mike, who graduated from Hopkinton High in 1970, has worked in a steel mill, had his own painting and plastering business and started Everything Jalapeno ... and not when his eyesight failed from retinal degeneration that started in his youth.

Of canning the pickles, relishes and jams he sells he says, "My grandmother taught me and she taught me well."

Like the name of Mike's business says, not all his traditional or green-tomato relishes, beet pickles or strawberry-rhubarb concoctions are hot,  but I tried most and they are unusual and unusually good.

Julie Gross of Julie's Z Breads was also at the Farmers Market. Unlike Mike whose friends told him to start selling his canning creations, Julie's children urged her.

She has a state-certified and licensed kitchen right in her Medway home where she makes perfect-texture zucchini breads and muffins of all flavors.

When celiac awareness bloomed, Gross started experimenting with gluten-free baking and now she has a line of really good-tasting, gluten-free muffins and breads.

"I had a few failures before I succeeded," she said.

Julie's Z Breads are sold in some stores but mostly she travels to Farmers Markets like Friday's in Hopkinton so people will have a chance to see how delicious her baking is. It is.

By the way, if you're interested in gluten-free products, give Julie a call 508-533-1350 and she can custom bake and package your preferences from among her products.

Dismas Family Farm steward Ward Holloway sat in the shade behind bags of popping corn and unfinished woodworks of all kinds of useful items.

"We have a program for former convicts," he said.

For men let out of prison and dropped off in the city with a few bucks in their pockets and are basically homeless, Holloway said, Dismas Farm has an indoor winter woodworking shop and about a dozen places for these fellows to stay until they get back on their feet.

Dismas is also a working farm with sheep, goats and chickens in Oakham. That's about two towns west of Worecster. An amazing place and amazing products!

Of all these great people to talk to, my favorite was Patty Small.

Patty, as blunt as her knives are sharp, started sharpening knives by hand because she couldn't stand being an accountant in the New York movie business.

She mentioned a few times that conventional wisdom says On the Edge Knife Sharpening won't make a profit until Year 5, but starting her third year in business she hopes she's going to break even.

One way she does that is work, work work.

Patty said she loves music and her only days off this summer will be to see k.d. laing, Johnny Lang ("a really cool blues singer"), Steely Dan, Mary Chapin-Carpenter and the Indigo Girls.

She seems a bit surprised that everybody wants her at their farmers markets, fairs and even the Museum of Science. (She's only scheduled in Hopkinton the second Fridays of the month.)

"That's great!" I said.

"That's weird," she said.

"A lot of people use grind stones but there aren't too many who do it by hand," Patty said, wiping off a knife, opening a notebook, and slicing a page.

"Everybody has to learn who they are," she said. "I knew I was a lousy boss and a lousy employee. So here I am."

Don't forget Melinda Moses, pictured with Buffy Cave, whose business Spin It Up Local aims to connect artisans and their communities through social media. This is a very cool idea and Melinda is fun to talk to, too.

EDITOR'S NOTE: This story was changed on Sunday, June 12, at 9 a.m. to note that Patty Small of On the Edge Knife Sharpening is at the Hopkinton Farmer's Market the SECOND Friday of each month. Her next visit is July 8.