Greetings!
Discover more from Ronan Farmers Market
For 2023, we’ve decided to step into the modern age and start a weekly (sometimes twice per week) newsletter that can come straight to your inbox to let you know what’s going on at the market and give you ideas for using the delicious meats and vegetables you found at the market.
In this first newsletter, I would like to tell you a little bit about myself. My name is Julie Moronuki, and I am currently the manager of the Ronan Farmers Market. I am a writer by trade and work from home here in Ronan. I also homeschool my two sons and have done so for most of their lives.
We’ve only lived in Ronan for four years now, but I went to college in Missoula and graduated from high school in Great Falls, so I’m not new to Montana. But between graduating from college and moving to Ronan a few years ago, I’ve lived a lot of different places. I lived in Japan for a few years (that’s where the name ‘Moronuki’ comes from). I lived in towns in both Wyoming and Idaho that are much smaller than Ronan is, and I’ve also lived in Austin, TX, and Atlanta, GA. Atlanta was the last place we lived before moving to Ronan, where we are now settled for good.
In every place I’ve lived, local food and community has been important to me. I’ve been a devotee of farmers markets in Missoula, Idaho Falls, and Atlanta, and I started a farmers market from scratch in my small Idaho town. I like to cook (usually!) and I make nearly all of our meals at home from scratch — since we work from home and also homeschool, all four of us are nearly always eating at home, so it’s a lot of work. And teenage boys can sure eat!
In Idaho and Atlanta and now in Ronan, I’ve made an effort to focus on eating only local foods. That was pretty easy to do in Atlanta, where some kind of fresh vegetable (and oh my, the shrimp!) is always available, but in Montana and Idaho, it takes a bit more planning. So I spend the summer buying all I can from farmers markets and local farms and canning, fermenting, freezing, and storing away all the good foods so we can eat well all year round, in addition to having as much of our yard as we can stand turned into garden and a mini-orchard. It’s a busy season for me, but I like what we’re able to accomplish and knowing where our food comes from, meeting the families who grow it and depend on being able to sell it to make a living, and knowing that my dollars are staying here in an area that’s important to me, supporting the people and processes that keep this land alive.
I’m looking forward over the course of this season to sharing profiles of our farmers and artisans with you and to bringing you lots of different recipes and tips for using the foods you find seasonally at the market, and to hearing from you, the community that the market is here to serve.
The first market this year will be on May 18 behind the Visitor Center in Ronan, Montana. Thank you, and I look forward to seeing you this summer!