If you head to Waverly’s 32nd Street Farmers Market on Saturday mornings, in addition to the tables filled with local peaches, sweet potatoes, and chard, you’ll find one presenting five silver tureens—gorgeous, elaborate serving vessels seemingly misplaced from a baroque dinner party—under an Ethiopian flag fluttering from a white tent.

This is Korarima, a pop-up restaurant stall from husband-and-wife team Daniel and Helen Wassé, featuring their vegan Ethiopian cuisine.

Early on weekend mornings, the tureens are filled with deeply aromatic dishes, classic fare from the couple’s native Ethiopia: the stewed red lentils called messir; shiro, a thick sauce painted deep orange by the spice mixture berbere; a yellow split pea stew called kik alicha; shimbra asa, which Wassé describes as “a chickpea version of doro wat,” the famed berbere-spiked chicken stew; and, depending on the season, the spiced cabbage called tikil gomen, collards or green beans. Nearby tubs house tightly rolled spools of injera, the traditional spongy flatbread made with fermented teff flour, flown in directly from Ethiopia.

Wassé, whose family came to the U.S. from Addis Ababa when he was a baby, is a pianist and a grade-school teacher at the nonprofit Village Learning Place. He and his wife moved from D.C. to Baltimore six years ago and, when their initial hope of opening a brick-and-mortar restaurant was put on hold with the pandemic, they found the farmers market for Korarima.

They’re now again scouting restaurant locations with Helen’s brother, Ezana Ferede, who is also a chef, and they’ve recently partnered with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra to bring their food to the Meyerhoff before concerts.

You aren’t yourself vegans, so why do you focus on specifically vegan dishes?
Because there’s a vegan movement here. Ethiopia probably has the biggest if not one of the biggest vegan menus in Africa. If you’re really religiously observant, you’re fasting half the year. So you go where there’s a need, not to mention the dollars and cents. Ethiopian vegan is sufficiently unique, with the spices, and there aren’t too many restaurants here we’re competing with.

Have you always cooked?
We both have. I was born in Ethiopia, where food is a big part of the culture. Growing up here, how do you stay  connected to the culture? It’s through food. Something that always sticks in my memory is going to a restaurant where the injera was actually sticky, still “leet,” [meaning] half-cooked. It’s a metaphor for when anything is left undone. My father, Dr. Alula Wassé, is a historian and food’s important, so I started cooking. [Now] it’s my wife who handles the food. I do the prep work and she’s brought me up to speed with the subtlety of the spices—we make our own berbere the traditional way. The chiles are warmed by the sun; the chemistry is different, slower.

Can you tell me about your name?
Our name is Korarima, which is false cardamom. African cardamom is radically different than the cardamom here. The smell of fresh korarima is so pungent, and it’s at the root of Ethiopian food. So if you don’t have fresh korarima, you’re faking it. It’s so fundamental. We live in Baltimore; it’s not too far from Dulles, and there’s a flight every day from Ethiopian Airlines. We know people; they send it. The curator at The Walters had to go to Ethiopia [for the art museum’s recent Ethiopia at the Crossroads exhibition], so we twisted her arm a little to bring some back.

In the five years since launching Bottoms Up Bagels, founders Michelle Bond and Joan Kanner have gotten the hang of serving their boiled beauties from the confines of a 10-by-10 tent at outdoor farmers markets.

“We have a menu of 10 to 12 sandwiches that we make from a bunch of coolers and a camp stove,” Bond says. “It’s been a crazy learning experience, but it’s still the best part of our week.”

As much as they love connecting with the community at pop-up events, Bond and Kanner are excited to now serve diners in a space that is all their own.

Last week, the duo debuted their cleverly named “BUB Hub” at 2731 Greenmount Avenue in the Harwood area of North Baltimore. Boasting colorful, mid-century modern exterior murals designed by The Bizarre and painted by local artist Bobby Coleman, the can’t-miss shop is currently offering carryout service for breakfast and lunch on Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays. The team is also making deliveries on Thursday and Sunday mornings.

In the wake of COVID-19, Bond and Kanner are being intentional about their slow rollout. Instead of immediately offering up half of their 17 indoor seats and adjacent outdoor patio, they’re taking some time to get up to speed in the kitchen.

With the new setup—an open kitchen features plenty of prep space and a new Hobart mixer—the team of 10 can now ramp up continuous production on a daily basis.

“What we were doing before wasn’t sustainable for the amount of work that goes into our product,” says Bond, who adds that the business previously shared commissary space at Bmore Kitchen. “We were baking 500 to 600 bagels at 2 a.m. to then take to the markets. All of that is so integral to who we are, but it’s just physically so hard to maintain.”

After nearly three years of searching for a permanent home, they found the old 1940s commercial building through a connection with Central Baltimore Partnership. Aside from falling in love with the physical space and its location along a major thoroughfare, Bond and Kanner were thrilled that it was in Harwood—just down the road from their home in Waverly and the 32nd Street Farmers Market, where they were longtime vendors.

“We’re committed to this area,” Bond says. “It’s really important to us to be somewhere where there isn’t everything already.” Adds Kanner: “Harwood deserves it.”

The spirit of the shop is inspired by both of the owners’ upbringings in New Jersey. The transplants, who have lived in Baltimore for more than a decade, want to evoke the “steam-on-the-windows” type spots that they visited with their families.

“Growing up, my grandparents and I would go and get bagel dinners on Saturday nights and come home to watch The Golden Girls,” Kanner shares. “These were places that were open 24-7 and you would go and get a hot sack of bagels any time. Sometimes I would even get the chance to hold it on the way home.”

Highlighting hand-rolled bagels that come in varieties such as everything, pumpernickel, cinnamon-raisin, and Old Bay, the Bottoms Up menu offers sandwiches like the “Jersey Brekkie,” with fried egg and Taylor ham, and the “Loxed Up,” topped with house-cured gravlax. The team also serves local Dear Globe coffee blends and has added patty melts and vegan black bean burgers into the mix during opening week.

As much as the bagels are an homage to their native New Jersey, Bond and Kanner also see them as a vehicle for promoting inclusivity. As a woman-owned and queer-owned business, that mission has always been at the forefront for them.

“It’s an every man’s food, so it’s unifying in that way,” Bond says. “This vision is so clear to me of going to the bagel shop and having the cop, the guy in the business suit, the construction worker, the teacher, the nurse, all just having their own customized version of this one thing. We’re trying to cater to people who like really dense, chewy, old-school bagels, while also catering to people who want a bacon, egg, and cheese when they’re hungover, or someone who only has $3 to spend and wants to be full. We’re trying not to be everything to everybody, but to really maintain recognition that all of those people are finding something in what we do.”

Adds Kanner: “We’re forcing the issue that people can come together over this.”

Just weeks after Governor Hogan deemed farmers markets as essential businesses, allowing them to remain open throughout the coronavirus pandemic, a blow to the local food system landed with the announcement that the Maryland Farmers Market Association (MDFMA) would be closing its doors, effective this past Friday.

Citing financial challenges, the nonprofit organization lost one of its primary grants through the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which was confounded by shifting funding availability following the outbreak of COVID-19, such as a hold on local agricultural dollars following Maryland’s mandated state spending freeze.

“For a small group that runs on a shoestring budget and is driven by passion, those grants can take you far,” says Juliet Glass, external relations director for the MDFMA, who is one half of the recent two-woman staff with market programs director Heather Hulsey. “We were working hard to find a sustainable path forward, but with the pandemic, it just became increasingly difficult. And we are not unique, there are small food system nonprofits across the country that are just a breath away from not being able to operate.”

Since its founding in 2012, the MDFMA has played a vital role for farmers, farmers markets, and the communities they feed across the state, acting as a sort of unofficial governing body. Over the last seven years, they’ve worked to improve fresh food access, such as increasing the number of markets that accept the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) for low-income citizens to nearly 50 percent, and support the livelihoods for farmers, through the likes of promotion, advocacy, and financial assistance.

“From the beginning, they were a unifying entity,” says Beau Johnson, board of directors’ vice president for the 32nd Street Farmers Market in Waverly. “They really connected all of these little independent islands and brought us together as an extended farmers market family with a larger common goal.”

Farmers markets will continue to operate without the MDFMA, but over the last month, its value has become increasingly apparent in the face of a global health crisis. With empty grocery store shelves and growing support of local food, the organization has stepped up to educate farmers on how to navigate the coronavirus pandemic, with efforts including sharing COVID-related safety guidelines, creating a marketing toolkit for their newfound demand, and continuing to inform the public about how to participate in the local food system. Their Google Map directory of regional producers has been viewed more than 60,000 times since its launch in early March.

“The MDFMA was really the force multiplier for farmers markets,” says Mariya Strauss, executive director of the Farm Alliance of Baltimore, a network of urban farming producers and advocates. “They were the group that coordinated efforts and convened local food producers across the state, and they had the perspective to see what would benefit everyone. I’m worried about who is going to play that role going forward.”

Other local, state, and nonprofit organizations will work to fill in certain gaps, with support networks for regional farmers already in place at the likes of the Maryland Department of Agriculture, University of Maryland Extension offices, and Future Harvest, a regional nonprofit focused on sustainable agriculture.

“Our doors might be closed, but we’re still open for business,” notes Ginger Myers, Extension’s agricultural marketing specialist. “We don’t have a central clearing house anymore, if you will, and markets themselves are going to have to pick up the ball more to get the word out to their customers.”

“This is a symptom of a much larger issue,” says Dena Leibman, executive director of Future Harvest. “It’s just so ironic that at this particular time in our history an organization like the MDFMA can’t raise the funds it needs to keep going. It’s not their fault, the resources are really scarce, and our government just continues to underestimate the importance of a strong local and regional food system. It put all its eggs in a large global supply chain, and now we’re seeing the effects of that.”

Perhaps the MDFMA’s most important contribution, though, has been its Maryland Market Money program, an initiative that monetarily matches purchases made with federal nutrition benefits at participating farmers markets throughout the state. With just two markets when the program launched in 2013, there are now 36 involved across 11 jurisdictions, including the likes of the 32nd Street, JFX, and Druid Hill Park farmers markets in Baltimore City, with food insecure Marylanders spending $455,000 in federal benefits last year across some 461 farms.

“Losing a statewide incentive program is really hard and the people who are going to suffer the most are those on the lowest socioeconomic ladder,” says Glass. “For folks on a very limited food budget, a five-dollar match can be the difference of an extra meal. This helps people eat healthier food, and for farmers, those five-dollar purchases add up.”

The news came on the heels of the Trump administration’s attempts to cut federal food stamp funding that would have resulted in the loss of benefits by some 700,000 SNAP recipients nationwide, though in the wake of heavy criticism, the USDA has since backed off.

But with some city and county funding already secured for Maryland for 2020, the hope is that another local organization can incorporate Maryland Market Money into their work, and some groups have already expressed interest. Meanwhile, market managers like Johnson are scrambling to match the funding on their own.

“Not everyone understands the economies of scale of farmers markets, that prices might seem higher than at grocery stores, but the cost of production on a half-acre farm in Baltimore City or a five-acre farm in Baltimore County is very different than a 100-acre farm in California that sells wholesale,” say Neith Little, urban agriculture educator at the University of Maryland Extension in Baltimore City. “Maryland Market Money helped bridge the gap for customers with limited resources. It made it more possible for those on SNAP and WIC (Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children) to participate in the local food system.”

Strauss sees this as a loss for the farmers themselves, too, noting that the MDFMA has been a steady source of resources, information, and technical assistance for Farm Alliance members. She recalls the way in which its staff would readily hop on the phone and walk their farmers through lengthy federal application processes for the likes of SNAP certification.

Even throughout this weekend after the association’s doors were officially closed, they continued to use social media to share updated coronavirus information and availability news, like the arrival of asparagus and strawberries.

“They were one of the few statewide groups that was really looking out for the smallest of the small farms and businesses,” says Strauss. “We are going to continue to grow food and bring it to market and hope that all of the good people around the state who are interested in having a sustainable local food system can come together and figure out how to fill this void. But losing the Maryland Farmers Market Association is going to be hard on all of us.”