White Street Market vendor Mark Dewitz is a familiar figure in town. Although the graduate of the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York, has worked as a chef in many different areas of the country, he bought 2.5 acres of land sight unseen near Beaver in 1981 and has lived there off and on since 1989.
After cooking school, he traveled and worked in Florida and New York. Then he ended up visiting Arkansas, and fell in the love with Eureka Springs. But finding it difficult to get a job paying a living wage as a chef, he worked for nine years as a captain at Commander’s Palace in New Orleans.
“It was the only way to save enough money to buy this homestead near Beaver,” Dewitz said.
Then, for nine years, he was a pastry chef at the Pinnacle Country Club in Rogers. That was a long commute, so he started baking deserts for Mud Street, DeVito’s, Center Street and Local Flavor. He has also worked at the Crescent Hotel, Forest Hill, the Cottage Inn, Dairy Hollow House and the Eureka Springs and North Arkansas Railway.
After a stint as a part owner of the Break Time Bakery, he worked to prepare the buffets at Myrtie Mae’s for seven years.
“You learn something at every job,” he said.
He retired a year ago, but stays plenty busy cultivating his garden and selling flowers, vegetables and fruit at the White Street Market on Saturday mornings.
Dewitz also still enjoys his culinary talents. He shares with friends his delectable cakes, pies, cookies, and breads other treats like wines sorbets and jellies made from crab apples, chardonnay wine and black raspberries.
Unlike some chefs, he is trim and doesn’t overindulge. He thinks pastries and other sweets should be an occasional treat, not something to eat all the time.
“I don’t trust the public with baked goods,” Dewitz said. “Some people can’t control themselves. They will stuff themselves with a dozen cookies at one time. I like baking a lot. But pastries are made with white flour, sugar, butter and cream. You don’t need to eat too much of those. I only eat a treat once in a while.”
He quotes Mary Frances Kennedy Fisher, a food author, who says: “To eat is a necessity. To eat intelligently is an art.”
He wasn’t always thin. He weighed 250 pounds in high school. But he took that off after going into the Navy. Since then he has been careful about eating in moderation.
Dewitz gardens organically. He uses trap crops like amaranth and passion vine for Japanese beetles, and then picks them off. He adds horse manure, grass clippings and wood chips for mulch and organic matter.
“It’s all about the dirt,” he said. “You have to feed the dirt and improve the dirt. I bring in all the organic matters than I can, and use organic products from Nitron in Springdale. The results are what I bring to the farmers’ market.”
Like most gardeners around, Dewitz sometimes has competition for the harvest from wild critters. His dog, Duke, keeps away the deer, but moles, voles and groundhogs can sometimes be a problem.
Dewitz doesn’t sell at larger farmers’ markets in the area, preferring the intimacy of the Ermilio’s parking lot.
“The White Street Market is a good thing,” he said. “It is a small neighborhood market where a lot of my customers are people I’ve known for a long time.”