Expect the unexpected at this family booth. Pat Gaines is continually researching and developing new products. She is something of a Renaissance woman at the market, creating new from the usual by exploring a new concept for her family and customers’ taste buds or health. She usually has herbs and eggs. She added homemade salad dressings. (If she knows you’re coming and have a favorite, she’ll bring it for you.) Then she began making individual breakfast quiches and other small entrees using produce and eggs grown on her farm, all free from GMO’s, pesticides, hormones. Unwanted bugs are controlled with ladybugs and other natural methods. No synthetics or chemicals are used on her property.
Awhile back she began bringing her own fermented products which have expanded from sauerkraut to pickled eggs, kombucha varieties, and now a master tonic. She specially blends her tonic with cider vinegar, onion, garlic, ginger, horseradish, and turmeric, ingredients touted through the decades for their health benefits. Her jars of pickled products have also expanded to include garlic dill pickles, pickled cauliflower, and mixed pickled vegetables.
A recent discovery was scorpion peppers. These little deeply colored orbs are for the brave who like their peppers hot. They leave jalapenos way behind on the heat scale. Another find was homemade vanilla with hand-made vodka and select organic vanilla beans. Pat is picky about her ingredients and uses organic specialty sources for what she doesn’t produce herself.
Up on the latest trends, Pat developed her own hot and sweet concoctions with a tasty habanero maple syrup and habanero honey syrup great on sausage biscuits.
Healthy snacks are an addition this season. The energy bites are gluten free balls of peanut butter, oats, honey, flax, and sometimes chocolate chips. And she makes both venison and beef jerky with meat ingredients from the wild or like-minded ranchers like Livestock First.
Hiram Farm only sets up at the farmers market on the second and fourth Saturdays of each month, located in the parking lot area near the seafood vendor. A long time vendor, Pat and her family first came to the market with mixed salad greens but then expanded with eclectic offerings and are always worth seeking out to see what’s new.