A Sunday Afternoon At The Stony Creek Farmers Market

Lily Morse, Summer, and Anna Folkers. Ruby Szekeres Photos.

Just a little ways away from the bustling booths and live music of the Stony Creek Farmers Market, Lily Morse and her wife, Anna Folkers, tucked into their haul of baked goods, soup and limeade with their one year old, Summer, between them. One treat stood out among the rest: a giant cup from Lime After Lime Co., the liquid sweet and tart to the taste.

Sunday afternoon, the two were among dozens of sun-soaked attendees of Stony Creek Farmers Market, a growing venture from organizer Clara Pagliaro that has, in the past three years, welcomed several new vendors and thousands of people to Bay View Park in Branford. This year, the market opened in June, and runs through November 1. With the exception of weather cancellations, it runs every Sunday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

“I’m just a sucker for giant cups," Folkers said, holding up her limeade, mixed with fruit. Many other people were carrying around these cups as well.

Shana Cappiello and Becky Trojanoski.

Part of the market’s magic is its vendors, who come from all over the state to sell their products. At a tent for Lime After Lime Co., co-founders Shana Cappiello and Becky Trojanoski served up tumbler-sized cups of freshly-squeezed limeade and lime rickey with an option to add seasonal fresh fruit and berries, sourced locally.

For the summer they had the option of adding strawberry and cherry, always the most popular, they said—along with blueberries, watermelon and mixed berries.

Though Cappiello and Trojanoski are based in Middletown, they travel all over Connecticut and hope to go out of state some day. This summer, they’ve brought their business to the market in Branford four times.

“It would be great to be a regular vendor here next year,” Trojanoski said. Her partner in lime agreed.

The King family - Kory King, Lucky King, Maxi King, DJ King and Sue King.

Just a couple farm stands over, members of the King family talked and laughed while selling fresh lobsters and shellfish. This is their second full year at the Stony Creek Farmers Market, vending through the 70-year-old family business King Lobsters (previously DJ King Lobsters). The business has been in the family for three generations, during which time fishers have learned to diversify their business as a matter of survival.

Kory King, who is now 28, has been helping his dad with the family business for 12 years. Sunday found him happily alongside his wife Maxi and daughter, Lucky, as well as his parents, Sue and Captain Donald “DJ” King. “We’re all Kings,” he said.

While he and his dad started off with just catching lobsters, they’ve expanded their business to seafood more broadly and also have a license to farm and harvest brown seaweed, more commonly referred to as sugar kelp (on their website, the King’s joke that kelp is Connecticut’s “new local veggie,” and there are increasingly more ways to use it in cooking as it becomes popular).

“It’s nice to have a market where you can sell directly to the people,” Kory said.

In part, that has also helped them keep the business running as the fishing industry changes dramatically. Decades ago, Connecticut had a large population of lobsters, so much that DJ King could count on catching hundreds a day. Now, that number is closer to half a dozen. His dad is one of Connecticut’s last commercial lobster-fishers.

Top: Cecelia Richter. Bottom: Sylvia Kim of Skimchi and Seoul.

Nearby, Sylvia Kim of Skimchi and Seoul greeted customers with gem-colored jars of kimchi, a Korean dish made with salted and fermented vegetables, sometimes seafood, and gochugaru pepper that gives it a brilliant red color and spicy taste. Kim, who has been making it for over six years, favors radishes, thin strips of carrot, and Napa cabbage, but she also sells sides like pickled radish, onigiri with sticky rice, and soft-boiled eggs in soy sauce.

Sunday, she was serving up radish kimchi, soy sauce cucumber and seasoned pickled radishes, intended for everyone to get a taste of something new.

In front of the pavilion, 9-year-old Cecelia Richter had a small glass table set up with charm bracelets, earrings and rainbow loom, all jewelry for kids. Richter first learned about the farmers market from her mom three years ago. Ever since, she’s had fun selling her creations.

For her, the market is about "supporting all the vendors and seeing everything they make.” Across from her stand she eyed a tent selling amigurumi crochet creatures. “Some days you sell more and some days you sell less.”

George: Watching the mushrooms grow is the best part of the job.

Love and passion was all McKinley George felt as he lifted a delicate clump of mushrooms, grown at Union City Farm lab in Prospect. Sunday, he had an assortment of oyster mushrooms and Lion's Mane. He also had Hen of the Woods mushrooms, a bracket fungi that George had foraged himself. Due to mushrooms' short shelf life (George said about up to five days) he also makes mushroom spreads, mushroom jerky and mushroom tinctures so nothing goes to waste.

His favorite part of the whole process is “watching them grow and connect[ing] with the community.” He particularly admires the Lion's Mane mushroom because of its nutritional value, as he believes it supports brain health and sleep. “Mushrooms have a ton of fiber,” he said, hoping being at markets like Sunday'swill encourage people to eat more mushrooms.

Attendee Mark Gaynor had just walked away from George’s stand with a box full of mushrooms. He was enthusiastic to stir fry them for dinner with chicken and peppers, mushrooms being a new food to him.

“I love it so much for the fresh food,” he said, as he took in the market.

This has been Gaynor’s Sunday activity all summer, not only because he lives nearby, but because Stony Creek Farmers Market feels so different from any other and everyone agreed. The atmosphere, the vendors, visitors; it all felt like being part of a happy community.

“It’s great because of the range of ages, from toddlers to senior citizens. Kids can play at the park behind the market. You can feel the friendliness here.”

This article comes from a graduate of the 2024 Cohort of the Youth Arts Journalism Initiative. Ruby Szekeres is a junior at Oak Meadow School.