SILVERTON

Mt. Angel adds Thursday farmers market

Christena Brooks
Special to the Appeal Tribune
Mt. Angel Wochenmarkt is brand-new and scheduled to operate every Thursday this summer, from 9 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., through the end of September.

“Many hands make light work,” goes the old adage, and it held true last Thursday at Mt. Angel’s new farmers market, inside the Shanigan family’s food booth.

Led by matriarch Kari Shanigan, the seven-member family had spent the previous day picking berries and baking goodies for sale. German Bienenstich (bee sting) cake, chocolate chip cookies and raspberry parfait were among the offerings.

“We love farmers markets,” Shanigan said, smiling at her husband and five children inside the tent decorated with the blue-and-white Bavarian flag. “It’s great to see how the kids can be a part of something that is real and fun.”

Named to fit the town’s Teutonic roots, Mt. Angel Wochenmarkt is brand-new and scheduled to operate every Thursday this summer, from 9 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., through the end of September. It’s a stone’s throw from the public library on a permanently closed stub of road at the end of Charles and Church streets. 

The Shanigan family.

“We didn’t want to do Saturdays because we want to be available for the same vendors who do the Silverton market or others,” said Mt. Angel City Manager Amber Mathiesen. “This summer our goal is to establish a base of vendors who will come back next season.”

“We are hoping to get farmers who have extra produce and who want another venue for selling,” said member Leah Duda. “Here we can get produce right to people, help local businesses, and cut out the middle man.”

Duda’s travels in southern Germany inspired her to approach city leaders about hosting a farmers market here. 

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“I love the markets over there. They are so fabulous,” she said.

At their May meeting, city councilors approved the Wochenmarkt concept that Duda presented with retired restaurateur Tom Maurer. The council went a step further, voting to insure the market so individual vendors don’t have to.

“That’s why we went the route of making it a city-sponsored event,” Mathiesen said.
So a Wochenmarkt vendor can show up on any given Thursday with an approved application and $15 and sell for the day. No seasonal commitment is required; the market’s committee members – Duda, Maurer and Shanigan – want to flex with the unpredictable nature of harvest.

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Leah Duda with a customer at the Mt. Angel farmers market.

Besides her experience in charming European markets, Duda also knows the fertile Willamette Valley is full of commercial farmers who sometimes find themselves with extra crops.

“My husband works in farming, and I know there are a lot of big farms out there,” she said. “There’s so much that, sometimes, it goes to waste.”

Herself a baker, Duda typically brings to market her home-baked goods, such as bread and cookies, and annual and perennial plants from her day job at the Happy Bee in Woodburn.

In the booth next-door, Maurer sells his own baked treats. Formerly the owner of Burger Time in Mt. Angel, he learned to cook the eatery’s pies when his wife fell ill.

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Mt. Angel Wochenmarkt is brand-new and scheduled to operate every Thursday this summer, from 9 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., through the end of September.

“I learned to bake when I could still call her and ask all those funny questions like, ‘What should I do about the piecrust sticking to the rolling pin?” he said.

She died more than a decade ago, but Maurer never stopped baking. At last week’s market, he sold slices of pie, cabbage rolls, chocolate cookies, coconut macaroons, zucchini bread, chocolate chip bars and more. His buyers were mostly local, so lively chatting accompanied business transactions.

Nearby, berries and jam were on sale at two booths, Samoilov Farm, from Mt. Angel, and South Barlow Berries from Canby. 

Partway through the morning, mother-daughter team, Kathy and Maddie Buhr, arrived to sell lemonade for 25 cents per cup. They’d been recruited by a Mt. Angel librarian, who proposed the business venture to 12-year-old Maddie.

To learn what’s required to sell at the new market, log on to http://www.ci.mt-angel.or.us/general/page/new-mt-angel-wochenmarkt-weekly-market