foodperson.com

The Community Mercantile had its “Meet, Eat & Greet” event on Saturday that lets customers say hello some of their local food producers. (Supposedly they do this once a month, although this is the first time I noticed, perhaps because I usually avoid shopping on Saturday mornings.)

The lineup for April 26 was Jan’s Organic World, Bauman’s Cedar Valley Farm, Mohamed’s Hummus and Farm to Market Bread.

I first spoke with Yvonne Bauman (at left above) of Cedar Valley Farm. Love their eggs. Occasionally get a chicken. And now, they’re raising ducks, too. Yvonne gave me a sample, and it was quite tasty. She said they dress out at about 5 pounds, just right for a dinner for six, I’d say. Yvonne also reported that the family’s new chicken processing plant was up and running after some three years in the making, and, as a state-inspected and licensed plant, that they’d done quite a bit of custom processing already for other commercial producers. She said she was about ready to give up getting licensed a time or two, but they finally did it, with lots of inspections. Too bad inspectors aren’t quite as diligent with the big guys. Congratulations to the Baumans!

I also spoke with Jean Cummings of Mohamed’s Hummus (no website—Jean says she’s low-tech). Mohamed is her husband and former chef/owner of Cafe Nile in Kansas City. Jean calls herself the Hummus Queen, and she enthusiastically offered tastes of Mohamed’s seven varieties: original, roasted red pepper, black olive, cucumber, curry, sun-dried tomato and spicy pepper. They also offer two kinds of baba ganoush, regular and spicy. I didn’t try them all, but I especially liked the sun-dried tomato and the cucumber varieties. I was a little surprised she had a selection of crackers, tortilla chips and pretzels as dippers instead of pita, but I suspect she knows the best approach for these kinds of presentations.

I didn’t check in with the guy at Jan’s Organic World, which offers various sauces and preserves (if I’m not mistaken) that I’ve never tried, and I was disappointed to find no one from Farm to Market Bread Co. I really like their bread, and their website makes me think I’d enjoy talking to them, too.

Guess I’ll keep an eye on the Merc newsletter to see who’s going to be there next month. Maybe I won’t be in a hurry next time. If you’ve been to these before, tell me who you met!