The garlic’s fresh – the breath isn’t

BONNERS FERRY – Thank goodness there wasn’t a kissing booth at Saturday’s Bonners Ferry Farmers Market Garlic Festival.

“I’m going to hate myself after this,” Gail Cathcart said as she prepared to judge the festival’s garlic cook-off. “Last year, it took a full box of Altoids – and it didn’t help much.”

Another judge, Michael Powers, entered “chocolate garlic stinking roses” in last year’s first cook-off.

“Speaking of stink, here’s a song about a dead skunk,” Russ Britt Sr. announced as he and his son, Russ Jr., entertained the crowd with lively folk songs performed on mandolin, banjo and a variety of acoustic guitars.

Although there was no shortage of bad-breath jokes, Bonners Ferry farmers take their garlic seriously.

Powers said his “stinking roses” were garlic cloves poached in Merlot wine and honey, then dipped in dark chocolate.

“People thought it was a nugget or something like that,” he said.

Maria LaBarbera, another judge was pleasantly surprised when she began sampling a plate of contest entries in four categories: meat or fish, vegetarian, condiment and dessert. The rules called for each dish to contain at least six cloves of garlic – enough to ensure the garlic could be tasted.

“It’s not as overbearing a full garlic taste as I expected,” LaBarbera said.

Judge Keith Snider tucked into his plate of samples with gusto.

“I love garlic,” he said. “Anything with garlic.”

Snider found it hard to make his choices despite the fact that there were only two entries in each category, but he especially liked the gumbo and thought the pickled garlic was excellent.

“This has grown exponentially,” Powers said of the cooking contest. “We’ve doubled our entries.”

The 29-year-old farmers market has been drawing good crowds this year by Bonners Ferry standards. There were 32 vendors Saturday in two rows next to the community’s visitor center, typical for market days featuring an event such as the cook-off, according to Masha Semar, who has been a vendor since the market was founded. Even without an event, the market has drawn an average of 25 booths this year, she said.

One might suppose that some enterprising farmer would offer an organic breath mint.

“It would be something like dill seed,” Semar said, pondering the idea. “Dill seed’s a good one, or parsley. Carrots would probably work also.”

Semar offered a large assortment of herbs, vegetables and, of course, garlic at her booth.

“Little bits of this and that,” she said. “That’s how you make a living in Boundary County.”

Garlic is popular among small farmers because the area has a favorable climate and soils.

“A small farmer can grow it as a cash crop,” Semar said – and she does.

Teri Amoth, in her first year as a vendor, quickly ran out of eggs Saturday.

“It’s tough to keep a farm-fresh egg around here,” she said.

Her booth featured a potpourri of goods: grass-fed beef that she and her husband, Chris, produce; flowers grown by her sister, Paula Rice; bread baked by their mother, Juliana Parker; and coffee roasted by family friend Eric Holdeman.

Fresh produce predominates at the market, but there are also handmade crafts and ideas for living in harmony with the Earth – and in the earth.

Mike Oehler was hawking his books and DVDs on how to build a bright, comfortable earth-sheltered home instead of a dark, leaky cave.

“That’s where you start,” he said, extending a copy of “The $50 and Up Underground House Book.”

He flipped to a photo of the underground home he built in 1971 for $49.70.

“I lived in that four years,” Oehler said. “That was in my hippie years, but now I’m a yuppie. I spent 10 times that on my current house.”

And Oehler is still upwardly mobile: He plans to replace his 370-square-foot, 42-window, pine-paneled home with a 1,800-square-foot, four-bedroom, two-bath, solar-powered earth mansion with a 30-mile view.

“I’ll bring that in for under $30,000,” he said.

Down the row, market manager Jesse McGee was showing people how to get a four-minute shower with two gallons of water, using a battery powered pump and a special shower head.

“I’ve showered, like, 650 people at the Rockin’ in the Rockies Concert with 1,250 gallons of water,” McGee said.

Necessity is the mother of invention, he said, noting his home has no electricity or running water.

“I’m 62 years old, man, and I feel good,” he said. “I’ve got way less stress than other people.”

Marciavee Cossette was busy explaining her “worm tea” when she learned she had won $10 worth of “market bucks” with the garlic pound cake she entered in the cook-off’s confection category. The cake, garnished with golden garlic cloves that resembled candy, beat some garlic donuts that were a hit with 8-year-old Cyndal Mathwig, who came from Spokane to visit her grandfather.

A word about the worm tea: Don’t drink it.

Worm tea is what drains from the bottom of a four-tier worm condominium filled with coffee grounds, vegetables, fruit, egg shells and the fiber of coconut husks.

It’s a superb fertilizer, but the worms deserve the credit, Cossette said.