Market customers get a mouthwatering thank you

The thank-you Victoria Dickinson’s friends offered her came scented with garlic and basil fresh from the garden. It came in satisfying swallows of sourdough bread hardly cooled from baking and salad greens covered in blueberries, beets, lavender pansies and yellow nasturtiums.

Victoria’s eyes widened with pleasure at the gastronomic presentation. Then they caught sight of the setting sun flooding the towering pines around her in fire-orange. She quickly sipped her merlot as if the Pend Oreille Winery nectar might temper her growing euphoria.

“Oh my,” she said, her ponytail wagging with each amazed shake of her head. “Yum. Oh, this is too much.”

The five people at her table giggled at Victoria’s expressiveness, but they nodded their agreement as they loaded their forks with calendula, perfect cherry tomatoes and purple-laced greens.

Victoria and her fellow diners were dinner guests of the Kootenai County Farmers’ Market last week. Market vendors wanted to say thank you to loyal shoppers and knew nothing was more appropriate than the very food they produce.

They wanted to treat hundreds of shoppers – the people who line up before 8 a.m. every Saturday morning for first pick at the fresh produce, the ones who buy most of their fresh flowers and garden plants at the market, the browsers who leave every weekend with a birdhouse or bread or garden art.

Barb Arnold found a perfect way to say thank you in a magazine. Barb has served as market mom, selling, organizing, managing and insisting on integrity for 17 years. After she read about a flower business in Texas that invited its loyal customers to dinner, Barb decided the 18-year-old farmers’ market could do the same with food it produces.

“They (customers) keep our market growing,” she says. Seventy vendors gather at U.S. Highway 95 and Prairie Avenue most Saturdays. The market used to feature only Kootenai County farmers, but farms have disappeared and shrunk. Now the market allows a few vendors from the region to meet shoppers’ demand and offer the variety and tree fruit shoppers want.

Barb’s board of directors liked the dinner idea. Common sense told them treating all their customers would break the market. A few dozen sounded like a reasonable crowd to feed, particularly if market vendors supplied the labor. To choose the lucky diners, the market held a drawing. Shoppers who spent more than $20 at the wooden stands in July received tickets that went into a bowl. Blues musician Paul Mata, who often performs at the market, drew 25 names.

“So no one could claim someone’s customers were favored,” Barb said.

Market vendors invited the 25 winning customers so everyone could bring a date, assuming most people like to dine with friends or family. Dates paid $20, which covered wine or beer, hors d’oeuvres, dinner, dessert, fresh bread with fresh butter and Paul Mata’s throaty rhythm and blues.

Caterers Jeanette and Matt Enns created a meal with primary ingredients from the market. Barb and other vendors supplied china and wine glasses from their homes. They covered round tables with white tablecloths and set them in the center of the market. They turned vendors’ stands into a wine dispensary, hors d’oeuvres table and worksite.

They wrapped silverware in paper napkins and tied fresh lavender to each bundle. They filled a dozen vases with veronica and orange zinnia, bleeding hearts and gladiolas, sunflowers and peonies, mums and false creeping peas.

“I am really tickled to be here,” Victoria said, as she filled out a ticket for a chance to win a vase of flowers. She’s a massage and water therapist in Coeur d’Alene and invited her husband, Dale Young, to the dinner after her name was chosen. “This is so exciting.”

Victoria tried fresh vegetables and basil dip, lamb skewers in cilantro ginger sauce and baba ganoush on toasted pita. The sun set as she ate her salad with flowers and candlelight flickered on each table as she dined on roast beef, red potatoes with herbs and patti pan squash. Vegetarian diners ate a frittata filled with fresh cheese and vegetables.

Just as Victoria leaned back in her chair to savor the gourmet meal, a server set homemade shortcake loaded with whipped cream and fresh berries in front of her and Barb announced Victoria and Dale both winners in the drawing for vases of flowers.

“What a night,” Victoria said, beaming.

If she’d ever considered shopping elsewhere than the Farmers’ Market, she never would again. The dinner most likely will be an annual event.