Eat Seasonally, Shop Locally

By Annie on Jul 29, 2009 | Add a Comment

One of the big events on Friday afternoons in our life and the bookstore's is the Connecticut Farm Fresh Express delivery. Bags of lush produce, fresh bread and cheese, vegetables, and apple strudels are dropped off at the store for me to bring home. Our staff drools over the goods until I sweep them out of the store at the end of the day!

CTFFE is a recent enterprise in southeastern Connecticut, and owner Deb Marsden was a feature of our community event, Eat Seasonally, Shop Locally, on June 30. Deb takes your online order by Tuesday at midnight and spends the rest of the week traveling to the local farms for your purchases, then delivers the order to your door on Friday afternoon. The quality is exceptional, and the variety is wide. I usually order lots of salad mix from Two Guys From Woodbridge, three pounds of coffee roasted by Ashlawn Farm in Lyme, and cheeses from Cato Farms in Colchester.

Our Eat Seasonally, Shop Locally event hosted over 50 people here at Bank Square Books, in the store and out on the front sidewalk, sampling homemade garlic scape pesto made by Starry Night Farm in Stonington, homeground polenta grilled by Sibby Lynch and Michael Schefers, produce and raspberries from Dondero Orchards in Glastonbury, and many others. Each farm gave a brief talk on what they grow and sell, and who and where they are. Among others, we enjoyed a history of flint corn from Whit Davis, who owns one of the oldest farms in Stonington, a discussion of honey by Stuart Woronecki of Stonewall Apiary, and an impassioned plea for the support of local agriculture by Bob Burns of Aiki Farms. Many of the participating farms sell their produce through local farmers' markets.

Now what does all this have to do with books? Not too much with the actual sale of reading material, but Bank Square Books is working hard to become a "community hub" for Mystic and neighboring towns. One evening in late May we hosted a community rowing even with rowing experts, a sample shell, and lots of local knowledge. On the last Tuesday in August we will host Mystic Cycle Center for a community biking event with local expert Rick Ely. Look for other such events to follow in coming months.

Selling books is our foremost responsibility, of course. Yet, we want to make the bookstore a central place for the community, a place where something of local interest is always happening. Our endeavours to bring the community into the store for local events will encourage more people to buy books here and to support other local independent businesses as well.
 
So come check us out in person and on our new Web site, www.banksquarebooks.com

Annie