Author: info@tamarackmedia.com

Local news Fox 8 covered Julien Vicard of Breakfast in Paris. He’s at The Corner Market on Saturdays. Look for the orange tent! 

Breakfast in Paris, a longtime market vendor, has opened a brick and mortar bakery in addition to their market stand. It has quickly become a popular spot in downtown Greensboro for its classically made croissants, desserts and freshly baked French breads. Julien Vicard opened the bakery not only to serve the community but also to teach young bakers his craft.

He grew up in France and attended the National Pastry school there. Decades ago, he moved to America and has run a number of bakeries in the Carolinas. He plans for Breakfast in Paris to be his last. Before he retires, he wants to pass on his culinary skills to people who have a passion for baking the classic French way. In 2025 Julien gave his employees an incredible bonus: a trip to Paris to study French baking!

FOX8 Foodie Shannon Smith takes us for a taste of Breakfast in Paris.

Oftentimes, and rightfully so, when we talk about farmers markets we focus on local produce and plants. We talk about the food that is grown in the soil that surrounds us. We learn about the land we live on – the seasonality of crops, the effects of extreme weather, or the pressure of our local wildlife. I have learned so much about these things, and if you hang around enough you will too. This is important for us to understand and embrace, and to support. I’m grateful that my kids have grown up with this knowledge and eating foods that come to us through the market.

But a farmers market is usually more than farmers, and by adding a bevy of prepared food, we can offer multi-cultural delights around every corner.

The melting pot we’ve collected at The Corner builds community connection

and some really interesting food combinations…

A flaky croissant from our French baker pairs beautifully with locally

roasted coffee from a Portland transplant.

Freshly made Sicilian pasta can be topped with marinara made from the family recipes of native New Yorkers. Or with pesto from the Aussie a few stalls down. And a French baguette.

Southern style pork barbecue makes a meal when served on West Virginia style dinner rolls and complemented by the award winning Mac n cheese from the Juneteenth Festival.

You can take home a week worth of dinners from all over the world!

• Indian Dahl Makhini
• Louisiana Cajun gumbo  
• Southern style shrimp and grits with collards
• Moravian style chicken pie
• Sudanese Butter Chicken
• Ecuadorian fresh spring rolls and ceviche
• Indian Palaak Paneer
• Mexican Burritos
• Congolese Samosas
• Authentic Pad Thai and crispy spring rolls
• Indian Chicken Curry
• Palestinian spanakopita with baklava
• Doubles and Aloo from Trinidad

People from all over the map have helped put our market on the map.

Farmers markets can truly make American dreams come true. Whether that dream is growing a productive and sustainable farm, sharing a passion that makes them unique, or sharing the flavors of their homelands.

And oh my the locally made concoctions to try! Our hobbyists, scientists and geniuses create kombucha, cultivated mushrooms, mead, bean-to-bar chocolate, fresh squeezed wellness juices, raise honeybees, age fire cider, and even make soap. And word on the street is that we’ve got a farmer pulling out new batches of kimchi and sauerkraut for Saturday’s market!

Farmers markets are incubators for success. We provide low barriers to entry so our vendors can join the Market and create successful businesses. Our vendors are role models and cheerleaders for each other, and we are blessed with a supportive community. Thank you for being dedicated and adventurous with us. It seems like this is working out, yeah?

Fall fest is one of our funnest days, for both vendors and our wider community. Some of the highlights include the annual Dog Costume contest, this year sponsored by Bear Dog Bakery. Bring your pumpkin-poodle, your hot dog-dachshund and your Harry Potter hound out to the market and have their photo placed on the voting board. Customers can place votes for their favorite dog for $1. Voters can enter as many votes as they like, and we encourage ballot stuffing – it’s for a good cause! At the day’s end, the staff of Bear Dog Bakery will tabulate the votes, and announce the winner. Winner receives treats from Bear Dog Bakery and ticket sales go to the Green for Greens fund. (Last year’s winner was a pug dressed as Sherlock Holmes, so the competition is real, y’all.

Faucette Farms donates pumpkins each year for the kids to paint. Many thanks to Bev for running this activity (as well as virtually every kids table activity, since before we moved to this location). Come early and let your little boo pick a pumpkin to decorate. 

We’ll also had a professional face painter so you can get your goblin on, and (as always) feel free to wear your costume to the market! 

And don’t forget the makings for your favorite fall flavors – apples, pumpkins, winter squash, beets, carrots, hearty greens, and good prepared foods to get you through the week!

Nancy McLaughlin at the News & Record referred to it as “The Miracle on Market Street.”

When it was announced that SNAP funding would not be released on November 1, many in our community panicked.  We panicked. With no SNAP funds to match there is no Green for Greens program. Even one week without the program would have a significant impact on our neighbors and our vendors. When one in eight of our neighbors can’t afford food, that impacts us all.

We announced the “Green for Greens: Oh SNAP” initiative on October 30. To anyone affected by the SNAP pause, we’re offering $75 in market tokens to spend on any SNAP eligible foods at the Saturday November 1 market. Simple. Generous.

It felt so good to have the infrastructure already in place to rise quickly to meet the crisis. Nonetheless, we were digging into emergency reserves to fund something we really had little control over once it began.

Between October 30 and November 10, our community donated an astounding $36,359 to support our Oh SNAP call. Stories ran in The Assembly, News & Record, and on local television news.

We ran the initiative for two weeks on those donations. And it felt nothing short of miraculous.

Thanks to this outpouring of community support, we provided $75 in market tokens to more than 400 customers in two weeks.

Most had never visited our market, some had never visited any farmers market, and virtually no one had knowledge of our ongoing Green for Greens SNAP matching campaign.

With a bag of $75 in market tokens, customers bought fresh local produce, meats, eggs and honey from local farms. They bought frozen casseroles, soups, and pot pies to heat and eat for meals later in the week. They got fresh baked bread and maybe a muffin for the kids.

Everyone said they would be back.

But that’s not all.

In just two markets, the checks we wrote to our vendors totaled more than $30,000. ($11,127 on November 1 and $19,523 on November 8). Vendor reimbursement for SNAP sales was seven times the norm for this time of year.  Our farms and small food entrepreneurs earned as much in two weeks as they had anticipated for the final two months of 2025.

Our entire Green for Greens program normally puts about $100,000 food on tables and dollars in the pockets of our vendors each year. Normally, half of that is raised by us, to match SNAP payments from the USDA. In comparison to other markets, ours is a very large program.

In two weekends, we raised the funds, fed our community in need and made the financial impact on our local food providers that would normally take four months to generate. Without a cent from the USDA. Totally community funded.

After removing the cost of a rush shipment of wooden tokens and bank and card processing fees, we basically broke even.

We guess that’s how miracles work. Or it’s just how healthy communities work. Together.

This week, with the government finally reopening and SNAP funds trickling out as partial payments, we will return to our standard Green for Greens program offer:

We match up to $50/weekly for SNAP customers. So if you are a customer who receives SNAP benefits and have any amount, up to $50, to spend either in SNAP benefits or cash, we will match that to double your weekly food budget. Every Saturday, year round.

Because the program ended up balancing donations and token outlay almost perfectly, we ended up not dipping into our emergency reserves, thankfully.

The perfect balance of the Green for Greens program has never been more obvious or publicized. At a moment when everyone’s attention was on the dire need for food support, our community came together to offer up a solution that was not a food bank. It was a pretty easy sell: donate here and on the way to supporting the local farmers and small food businesses you love, your money will also feed the people in our community who need it most.

All over town there were donation boxes for cans and boxes of non-perishables to go to food banks. Millions in state and municipal grants poured into food banks. If you didn’t know better, you might have thought food banks were the only way to help.

But we knew there was another way. And we trusted each other to make it happen. 

Together, we simply amplified our Green for Greens program that has worked so beautifully for a decade. With no SNAP to match, we pledged to fill the “SNAP gap” by simply giving market dollars to our neighbors who had been impacted.

Come get what you need to get you through, we’ve got your back.

We said we’d do it until SNAP benefits were restored or our money ran out. We really had no way of knowing which would come first. (But I had a pretty good feeling that this community could outlast the federal government impasse.)

Over the next two Saturdays we gave bags of $75 in market tokens to 450 of our neighbors. People shopped, they told friends, and they came back. Donations were steady and generous. Market friends jumped right in on site to count tokens and help new folks find the foods their families like. And when benefits were restored mid month, you know who came back? Those new folks who we embraced during uncertain times. 

Because this wasn’t a one off show of support. It wasn’t just charity. 

Over the years we have built the largest community-funded SNAP matching program statewide.  We believe that farmers markets are for everyone. By matching SNAP, people buy less food at Walmart. They eat better. Everybody (except Walmart) wins. It’s just smart business, really. It’s how you build a market filled with vendors who are successful. It’s how you build a resilient local food system. It’s how you build a connected and caring community. check, check, check.

For years I’ve encouraged other markets to build their SNAP matching programs. Because it just isn’t charity. In today’s Farmers Market Pros newsletter I saw myself quoted, “Don’t waste the opportunity to introduce new customers to your market….If you have an outdoor market like ours, you know who shows up on the rainy days? SNAP customers. Don’t underestimate the value (to your farmers) of building that customer segment at your market!”

Yep. That sounds like something I’d say.

Our Green for Greens program stretches the food budget for a lot of people over the course of a year.

We run about 1,500 SNAP transactions in a normal year. Annually, our Green for Greens program puts $100,000 of local, fresh food on the tables of families who qualify for SNAP benefits. And generates that same amount in vendor sales.

In November (so far) we distributed  nearly $40,000 in market dollars in 607 SNAP transactions. So, in one month, we generated the equivalent of 40% of our annual projection. And we received the community donations to cover it. 

Together we out ran the longest government shutdown in American history. 

The News and Record dubbed it “The Miracle on Market Street.” The Assembly spotlighted our efforts in a piece called “How Greensboro’s Community Rushes to Fill the SNAP Gap.”

This community has never missed a beat when help is needed, I am thoroughly in awe of what we’ve built here. My goodness.

We know there are more challenges to come, but that is a newsletter for another day.

Today I’m celebrating, and I hope you are too. I’m full of it.

We really did it this time.

Thank you,

Kathy Newsom, Market Manager

If you have Corner Market kids, you know Bev! 

Beverly Lozano has managed our kids programming since the summer of 2021 when we moved to our current location. Every week she comes up with a craft to keep lots of little hands busy while parents socialize or shop. What you might not know is that Bev is a volunteer – and that she also purchases all the craft supplies AND find the chicken prizes each week. 

Sometimes Bev helps as many as 100 children make crafts in a single market – amazing! And she says that she distributes about 40-50 prizes to chicken finders each week.

Want to support her generous efforts with replenished supplies? Below is a wish list (that we had to absolutely drag out of Bev!) Let’s show our number one volunteer our appreciation with some fresh supplies:

Help restock the kids’ make and take program!

Bev says she tries to only use supplies that are non toxic and washable. 

• water soluble paint  (Dollar Tree has the best selection)
• colored glue bottles
• wooden cut outs for painting
• glue sticks
• For Chicken Finders, Bev says the most popular rewards are:
• rings
• cute erasers
• bubbles
• mardi gras beads
• “slap bracelets” (ask a kid!)

fake mustaches

If you’d prefer to make a cash donation, please bring it to the market tent and we will combine donations into a Reconsidered Goods gift card for Bev’s supply fund (if you put it into the jar on the table, Bev will donate it to Green for Greens, just like she does every week!).

Last Saturday was the one day a year that we take totally off. In the past, what I missed most was my market family. My peeps. The vendors and customers I love seeing on Saturday mornings. But now, to be honest, I miss the food just as much.

In the past I would try to fill some of those food voids with grocery store stand ins. The biggest disappointment is the produce. We’ve all brought home a plastic box of salad mix that’s limp before it even makes it home and goes slimy in days. Or bagged carrots picked weeks ago in California. (I’m reminded why I never used to like carrots- woody and almost bitter). “Fresh baked” bread at a grocery store at best means frozen bread baked in house. And if you pick up hummus from the grocery store it’s likely the Sabra brand, made at the world’s largest hummus producing facility.  

When I try to find the food I missed by skipping a market, I find that I can’t. Even if I go to several stores, I can’t come close to replicating what I miss from the market.

I’m reminded that the average American meal travels 1,500 miles before getting to our plate. Ridiculously horrible for the environment, unsustainable, and the food is sub par (to put it nicely).

I remember that true convenience and quality comes from just one place – our Corner. The Corner that we made together. The one stop shop for all the food I truly love. 

At The Corner Market neighbors catch up with friends, and vendors over a cup of fresh roasted Fireweed Coffee. Visitors might have one of Maria’s breakfast burritos or a fresh pumpkin muffin from Chad. They come home with fresh greens from Nik and sweet carrots from Brittany and Richard. They cut toast all week from that crusty loaf of bread baked fresh by Jeff at the Breadservice micro bakery in his College Hill home. 

They enjoy fresh hummus made by Annah just two miles away at the downtown kitchen of Zaytoon. They may have had microgreens cut that morning by Jon of No Diggety farm, or goat cheese from the Goat Lady Dairy in Climax. Fresh caught seafood – maybe even raw oysters – from Fishmonger who drives halfway to the coast weekly to pick it up. Customers might be at home now, enjoying fresh cut flowers on the kitchen table. 

“We’ve spent a lot of time loading pallets of cheese onto 18-wheelers and we’d like to balance that out by getting back to our roots. And that means selling directly to our customers at farmers markets,” These words, from Carrie Bradds, came as music to my ears when I met her at last week’s market.

And Carrie knows something about being rooted to the land, “My family has been farming the same land for over 200 years. The house we live in now was built in 1780, and we know my great grandfather 5 times removed lived in the house in 1816. 

Bobby actually built the dairy along with my dad, Tommy,” she says, “And I started working for the Tates in 1995” 

After working hands on for two decades, caring for the goats and making the award winning cheeses that put the farm on the map, Carrie and her partner Bobby purchased the Goat Lady Dairy in 2016. They bought the farm from siblings Ginny (The Goat Lady) and Steve Tate after Ginny’s death in 2009 from ALS.

We value knowing the stories and the people who make up our local food ecosystem. Those personal connections are important to the folks on both sides of the table. 

Of course, we have have Goat Lady Dairy cheeses available part time at our market for years. And we will miss Denise and Seneca and the rest of her knowledgeable staff. Having the folks who have lived and worked on the farm and with the goats and building the legendary line of cheeses that make up the Goat Lady Dairy’s offerings is a whole new level of connection, and we are excited to welcome them aboard.

Look out for Goat Lady Dairy at the Corner Market and stock up on the classic, creamy chevre logs in flavors like Fig and Honey, Sunny Paris, and Jalapeno. Try their marinated cheeses, as well as some hard cheeses made with raw cow’s milk.