From the Center Daily News

Monday, Jul. 20, 2009
On Centre: Bald Eagle Area
State grant helps restart Julian farmers market
Chris Rosenblum
- crosenbl@centredaily.com
In order to sell greens, Ann Wilken needed greenbacks.
A state grant did the trick for the Julian Woods Community resident who wanted to start a local farmers market last year. The $1,200 helped launch the Julian Village Green Market.
“That was a big boost for us to get some money to do some marketing,” Wilken said.
Saturday, she and co-organizer Leslie Demmert, of Huston Township, will stage another edition of the market outside the Julian Community Center on Allegheny Street in Julian.
From 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., Dan Sharp will be there with summer vegetables and organic eggs from his Huston Township farm. So will Jim Mathis, owner of the Hog’s Galore restaurant in Philipsburg, and family members.
They’ll have a selection of pork products, and pulled pork and hot sausage sandwiches in case any-one’s hungry for lunch.
Shoppers browsing among the 10 to 12 vendors may also find perennials, fresh-cut flowers, jewelry and crafts.
More can be seen on the consignment table, where the items dropped off might include such wares as beeswax candles made in Unionville.
The music will be free.
Joyful Noise, a contemporary Christian band from Julian, will perform at noon — the kind of show Wilken would like to schedule more.
Entertainers can call her at 355- 8026.
The same goes for vendors, who pay a small fee for tables.
Two more Saturdays, Aug. 29 and Sept. 26, remain.

Village Green Market Dinner

As part of our effort to get to know our neighbors I volunteered to co-direct the Julian Green Market, a "eat local" effort in Julian that encourages local produce providers (fruits, veggies, meat, eggs, etc.) to sell their wares in our town square. To gin up interest in the market's startup later this month, we had a kick off dinner on Saturday -- people donated food and they sold tickets as a fund raiser. Since I would be in Syracuse for KatieP's graduation, I volunteered the Baron to cook up a batch of local mushrooms for the dinner. He got the recipe from the Penn State University (PSU) chef who lectured at Venison 101 class: sauté slices white cap mushrooms in butter, pepper, and a splash of lime or lemon juice. He uses Real Lemon juice. We get our mushrooms from the PSU Mushroom Lab that sells them once a week in 10 lbs boxes. So he was definitely using local produce. The most of the butter was from the PSU Creamery, but needed some additional, so I also used butter from Maryland. As a garnish he used organic curly parsley from a farm in PA. He sautéed about 8 lbs of the mushrooms Sat afternoon (started slicing mushrooms at 2:30 and finished cooking at 4:15 PM) and took them to the dinner for the 5:00 PM start. Food at the dinner was buffet style: appetizers of pesto and small crackers, BBQ pork and chicken donated by Hogs Galore, fresh greens and salad dressing, asparagus steamed in lemon juice and olive oil, rice and wheat pasta salads, bread, vegetarian pizza, several pies, cookies, and sticky buns from the Unionville Cafe, and a variety of cold and hot drinks donated by the Community Supervisors. The mushrooms got raves and were all gone. So I guess you could say that for Mothers' Day Paul was a stand-in for Leslie at the local dinner.