Stone soup closes Oak Park Farmers' Market's 
silver anniversary season on Saturday

By ERIC LINDEN

The Oak Park Farmers' Market this Saturday will close its 25th season 
of offering home-grown produce and more for sale on Saturday mornings at
Elmwood Avenue and Lake Street.

The traditional offering of stone soup to all customers will help close
the 2000 season beginning at 7 a.m. in the parking lot of Pilgrim
Congregational Church, 460 Lake St. Stone soup comes from a legendary
children's tale.

According to the story, a soldier comes to a small village and has
nothing to eat. After the soldier starts to boil a stone in a kettle of
water, curious residents of the village pass by and ask about the
situation. The soldier says he's cooking stone soup and allows that the
"dish" would be improved by a  few vegetables. The town's residents
contribute all manner of vegetables and other foods and end up
celebrating the taste of the delicious stone soup.

The Oak Park Farmers' Market's version of stone soup this Saturday is 
to include squash, turnips, beets, cauliflower, tomatoes, onions, peppers,
apples and spices--all donated by the growers who sell their wares at
the Oak Park market.

The silver anniversary year began with village government, which
sponsors the market, forwarding the possibility that that there might 
be a new location for the Oak Park institution and with a new manager, Oak
Park resident Kelly Coppel. Instead, the Farmers' Market has had its
usual year of market vendors selling fruits, vegetables, plants, dried
flowers, honey, t-shirts, homemade cheeses and other products at their
usual location.

There reportedly are 129 farmers' markets in Illinois and Oak Park's is
the oldest, started in 1975 to provide a new community activity that 
was to draw persons of all ages and races living in the village.

Besides the weekly sales of produce and other items, the sales at
Pilgrim church of coffee and doughnuts and the live folk music offered,
the Oak Park market also offers special events, which for 2000 included
June 3 opening day ceremonies and free strawberry shortcake to patrons,
the July 15 Kids' Day that included a story teller and balloons, the
Aug. 19 Corn Roast with corn donated by vendors and grilled by
volunteers and, finally, the closing stone soup day that also will
include pumpkin painting.

And also, a new lease was signed earlier this year with Pilgrim Church,
so the market is slated to continue next year at the northwest corner 
of Lake Street and Elmwood Avenue, already announcing an opening date of
June 2, 2001.

Instead of a new location, the biggest change at the market this year
was the departure as part-time market manager of Nancy Ricketts, who 
was replaced by Coppel. Ricketts, who works full-time as a housing code
inspector at village hall, was told by government officials that she
could not return to the Farmers' Market position. Village hall 
officials last year ruled that the arrangement amounted to "double-dipping," or
one person filling two public jobs, and a new market manager was 
sought.

The market is run by the Farmers' Market Commission, a volunteer panel
of Oak Park residents. Separately, Pilgrim Church owns doughnut-making
equipment in its basement and runs the weekly sale of doughnuts at the
market. Doughnuts made on the church's equipment are sold each Saturday
to market customers, and the doughnuts are made either by church 
members or by volunteers from selected local not-for-profit organizations, who
split the doughnut sale proceeds as fund-raisers for their organizations.

The commission is aided in its work by Coppel; assistant market manager
Margaret Will; Assistant Village Manager Ray Wiggins, representing
village government's interests; Eric Sacks of the Citizen Involvement
Commission, another volunteer village hall panel and one that works to
attract residents serve on commissions; and Ron Fischer, another Oak
Park resident who is best known as the "Honey Man" at the Farmers'
Market and who is the liaison to the market's growers and vendors.

Under Oak Park Farmers' Market rules, those who sell at the market must
grow their own produce. They pay rent for weekly spaces in the parking
lot owned by and adjacent to Pilgrim Church.

Because of the growing season, at this Saturday's final market day, not
all the familiar offerings will be available to shoppers. Expected to 
be on hand, however, will be apples, some late-season vegetables, cider,
pumpkins, cranberries, honey, jam, vinegar, plants and arrangements of
live and dried flowers.