Soulard Farmers' Market Quality Selections

John Davis, the Mushroom Man, shows off his wares at the market on Saturday, May 17. In the basket are Crimini, and he holds a container of morels. A variety of mushrooms are available from his specialty booth.

Soulard Quality of Life Over the Weekend - A Report

A friend of Madame Chouteau, who will be known as Brenda Starr, provided insight into neighborhood life over the weekend, on Saturday and Sunday, May 17 and 18, 2008. There were a series of street closings and miscellaneous celebrations. Pictured are some empties lined up along the gutter near the intersection of S. 10th Street and Allen, found on Sunday, May 18. How many dead men can you count? Following is the report of Brenda Starr. Enjoy.

One of the street closings over the weekend was for the 9th Annual Car Show, originally begun by Hammerstone’s Bar. For 8 years the car show was confined to Ninth Street. But, like most things in Soulard, in an attempt to draw more beer-drinkers to the neighborhood, the show has been expanded to include more and more cars, and then to add to the excitement there was created the "Wacky Soapbox Derby." To make room for this wonderful event, all of Geyer Avenue was temporarily closed for the excitement.

Another spectacle was billed as the "Soulard Olympix." The main event seemed to be elbow bending, since the Olympix was described as time to "crawl your way thru Soulard’s Pubs and Private residences."

Still another street closing - the area where S. 10th Street intersects Allen - was sponsored by Jim and Julie Price. I was told this was a charity affair, but the person I questioned about the matter did not know the name of the charity.

Friday night: Geyer, my street, looks like a fraternity party. Three young men have pulled chairs out onto the sidewalk in front of their apartments at 1006 and are drinking. At 1003 there are three young men and a young woman drinking beer on the stoop. Emergency "no parking" signs are posted all up and down the street, in anticipation of the Wacky Soapbox Derby.

Saturday, early afternoon: Old-timey music from Spooty’s bar is blaring across the neighborhood. I assume it is for the benefit of the neighborhood, since there are only five patrons sitting on the patio where the speakers are located.

In the late afternoon the old-timey noise is surpassed by rock music coming from the Price’s event on 10th Street and Allen. I am a block away. With my windows and blinds tightly shut and the air-conditioning going, I can still hear the music inside my home.

Saturday evening: at 10:30 p.m. the music is still blaring away. My stroll down the alley at that hour reveals several young men urinating in a neighbor’s dogtrot. When I suggest that they use one of the three port-o-potties at the event, they said that they were urinating on the neighbor’s property because the port-o-potties were full. It is not clear whether the facilities are full of people or full of urine. But, what the heck, an excuse for public urination is an excuse.

There were a lot of people at the 10th Street celebration, some of them obviously drunk, and some of them obviously underage and drunk. One wonders if anybody is supposed to monitor underage drinking. The Prices? The City of St. Louis department which authorized the liquor license? Alder woman Phyllis Young? Obviously, nobody was in charge. Obviously, nobody cares.

Sunday morning: at 7 a.m. the neighborhood is blissfully quiet. 1006 Geyer still has the chairs, now empty, and a few beer bottles, now empty, on the sidewalk. 1003 Geyer is more poetic - a beer bottle sitting in a flower pot. Soulard’s flowers. And 10th Street between the alleyway and Allen, the site of the Price event, is a mess. Plastic trash bags overflowing with food and miscellaneous garbage are everywhere. One must assume that the rats had a good time when the music stopped and the drunks went home.

Fresh from Millstadt to You - Asparagus

Scharf Farm employee Eugenio Gomez helps harvest and sell the asparagus crop on Saturday morning, May 17 at the Soulard Farmers' Market. Stalks are available in thin, medium and thick sizes. Like gazelles the Scharf family and their employees leap from their beds early in the morning to harvest the produce and bring it fresh - and covered with the morning dew - to Soulard shoppers. "It's the best asparagus I ever put in my whole mouth," testifies Madame Chouteau. Allen Scharf reports that the first of the strawberry crop will be available at the market next Saturday. Sweet potatoes, bedding plants and other items are also available at the Scharf booth. The asparagus crop still has several weeks to go.

Quality of Life Issues in Soulard or Trash is Good, No?

We were out walking early on a Sunday morning, on May 4, 2008, and discovered this cache of trash in Soulard on S. 12th Street, near Russell. When we drove by hours later, it was still there. It looks like some people had been partying. To the left is the front door of Tucker’s Restaurant.

We watched the television program on Channel 10, the city channel, about littering. Interestingly, we did not see our alderperson, Phyllis Young, featured in the program or saying anything anti-litter. In fact, we did not hear any politicians address the subject. The Channel 10 story featured citizens urging other citizens to pick up litter around their property.

Madame Chouteau wonders why this issue is left to those who are faced with picking up after others. To be honest, St. Louis is a very litter strewn city. Go to Chicago and you do not see the litter that St. Louis boasts. Of course, go to Lafayette Square and you do not see the litter that Soulard boasts. Can you say Entertainment District?

It is a quality of life issue, just like street crime. But nobody goes near it. It seems to Madame Chouteau that the problem stems from a lack of self respect exhibited by those who litter. This group needs to be addressed. Instead, the victims are lectured, as usual, and urged to do something about the problem.

The April 30, 2008 (May 1-May 7, 2008) issue of the Riverfront Times carried an interesting story (http://www.riverfronttimes.com/2008-04-30/news/downtown-st-louis-residents-to-the-dolce-nightclub-shut-the-hell-up/) titled "La Dolce’ Veto," a story about quality of life issues resulting from a bar downtown. Fights, noise and some sort of drive-by shooting were all discussed, along with the outrage of nearby condo owners/residents. The police had to concede that shots were fired because there were bullet pock marks in the building and a window had been shot out. The highlight of the story was the quote from Rob Olsen, described as the owner of Dolce’ Ultra Lounge & Bistro, the name of this place, who said: "I just don’t get how people think they can move downtown and not hear some noise."

This is the classic response of discourteous, couldn’t care less people who ignore the impact of their actions on a community. In Soulard, I guess the quote would be: "I just don’t get how people think they can move here and not be confronted with litter. After all, it is an Entertainment District."

Madame Chouteau certainly has to concede that point, and she has to thank the fine folks at City Hall - and our local leadership - for ignoring the impact that an Entertainment District designation and liquor sales has on residential interests and quality of life issues. And of course, we tip our hats to those who litter, to those who are making Soulard - and the City of St. Louis - what it is.

Crime Stuff: Stay Alert, Shots Fired?????

Following is a crime alert from Lisa Otke dated April 30 and forwarded by Terry Hoffman on May 1, 2008:

SHOTS FIRED

Residents reported hearing shots fired on Saturday night in the vicinity of Shenandoah & 7th/9th Streets. Per the police the shots came from the area around South Broadway Athletic Club where the suspects were not allowed into a party. The police received over a dozen 911 calls – a resident reported being on the line for 8 minutes without a answer from 911 which may have been due to the volume of calls. The police have a partial license plate number and are investigating. A problem with the investigation is that all the “victims” refused to make any statement and would not give any good physical descriptions.

Terry Hoffman added to his e-mail the following note (note was above description of "Shots Fired"):

additional information we received from hi-tech security re: the event below...

"original call was for a "large fight with shots fired" around S. Broadway Athletic Club (around midnight on Saturday night.) The call was reclassified as "large crowd causing a disturbance" and the "shots fired" was canceled. Crowd was dispersed by officers and everyone was back in service in about 10 minutes."

Madame Chouteau is not following this report. Apparently a dozen or so people called 911 to report shots fired, but now the "shots fired" concept has been deleted from any police report. Madame Chouteau is starting to understand the April 25, 2008 St. Louis Post-Dispatch headline: "Crime down, except for the killings," found on page C1. We like creative crime reporting: if it isn't in the police report, then it didn't happen. Some may remember that this happened with rape statistics a couple of years ago.

Too Many Bars in Soulard? When Did That Happen?

A friend of mine moved to St. Louis from California almost two years ago. She purchased a home in the Lafayette Square Historic District. One day I asked her if she had considered the Soulard neighborhood while shopping for a home to buy. She had, but when she questioned her real estate agent about Soulard, the agent said that there were too many bars there.

Madame Chouteau wishes to thank that real estate agent for doing his job. Soulard has many charms. The Soulard Farmers’ Market, the European flavor of the architecture, the convenience of the neighborhood, and other elements are tremendous assets for an area that was dismissed as a slum and slated for demolition as recently as the early 1970's. However, the neighborhood recognizes that it does not benefit from people moving in and then discovering an aversion to bars and bar byproducts: noise, litter, vandalism, drunkenness and other quality of life issues. People should make decisions based on understanding the positives and negatives.

The need to confront reality is not concealed by Soulard residents. In the Sunday, August 29, 2004 issue ("News Watch: Issues and Analysis," Section B, page 1) of the "St. Louis Post-Dispatch" there was a very apt quote: "Anyone who lives in Soulard isn’t going to be anti-bar. You wouldn’t move here if you were." This excellent quip (or slap in the face, if you will) for Soulard residents (and potential residents) is attributed to "Gary Siddens of the Soulard Restoration Group." The context of the quote was a debate resulting from an "effort to limit the proliferation of nightspots in the neighborhood," according to the newspaper.

Madame Chouteau remembers talking with somebody who thought Mardi Gras was too declasse. This lady had gone door-to-door with a petition, trying to enlist support for controlling (or limiting) the main event, the Grand Parade, as it is known. At one rental unit, a woman answered the door. After learning the purpose of the petition, the woman replied: "I can’t sign that, I’m a drinker." And we know another family who bought a house in Soulard. Their proud explanation was: "We were down here partying all the time, so we thought we might just as well move to Soulard."

In the early 1970's, Soulard was a slum, the result of lack of insight and of attention during the watch of Alderman Raymond Leisure. Then things started to look up, as so-called "urban pioneers" discovered the area and started turning it into a residential-oriented historic district. Just when things started to look their brightest, Soulard turned again. It was sidetracked, turned into an entertainment district whose foundation is a potemkin Mardi Gras.

This peculiar and ugly celebration - which symbolizes the difficulty of Soulard (and of St. Louis) to envision a future - and the growth in the number of bars and liquor outlets (and the designation of Soulard as an entertainment district) has occurred on the watch of Seventh Ward Alderperson Phyllis Young. The alteration in the personality of Soulard has been ignored by the clueless neighborhood organization, the Soulard Restoration Group, and it has been spurred by the venality of liquor purveyors who have been given a free reign.

This course change, which caters to the lowest common denominator of neighborhood interests, has just happened, like a rudderless ship foundering on the rocks. The metamorphosis harks back to the visionless leadership provided during the years of Raymond Leisure.

Madame Chouteau thanks Alderperson Young and her supporters and handlers for her governance, for looking out for the interests of the businesses in Soulard and for helping turn the neighborhood into the setting for an annual, mirthless bacchanal and for the year-around antics of people devoid of any respect for Soulard or themselves. And Madame Chouteau hopes that real estate agents will continue to inform their clients of the existing reality in Soulard. After all, if this is as good as it gets, then new arrivals and the unwary need to be informed.

Despite Cool Weather, Spring has Arrived

Scharf Farm delighted Soulard Farmers' Market patrons by trotting out the first asparagus from their fields in Millstadt, IL on Saturday. They offer bundles of thin, thick and medium asparagus stalks. Madame Chouteau purchased two bundles, and this fresh-from-the-farm, locally grown produce was absolutely delicious. Many thanks for the treat.

Roco Trading, which seems to have settled in at Stand 23, sort of across the way from the Scharf booth, is offering seafood, including shrimp, Alaska cod fillets, Maine lobster tails, scallops, dressed catfish and other products. The market is offering an array of seafood, it would seem, with Roco Trading and 2 Big Fish. Seafood fans are provided with an interesting selection.

Another stand of interest, also located near the Scharf Farm booth, sells Autumn Crest Bistro Blends of Napa Valley Gourmet Flavored Balsamic Oils and Vinegars.

With the warming weather, the Soulard Farmers' Market is beginning to hop. Pictured is the barn at Baetje Farm. Of course, the snowy picture was taken in February. Warm inside were the happy goats, sources of the milk that makes the delicious Baetje Farm goat cheese, available at the market. By the way, Steve Baetje is a stone cutter, and he has created some unique and beautiful stone cheese boards. Thick and thin cheese boards are available at their booth, along with the excellent Coeur de la Creme and Fleur de la Vallee cheeses.

City dwellers are fortunate to have available at Soulard Farmers' Market so many vendors with such outstanding offerings. Stop and talk with these folks, and buy their products. And add your reactions to the market in the comments section below. Madame Chouteau is always interested in hearing from you.