Cecille Berry has been a friendly face at the Eureka Springs Farmers’ Market for five years, providing produce from the family’s garden near Berryville that she grows with the help of her son, Joshua Israel. But now their produce is available six days a week at the Oriental & Farm Fresh Market in Gaskin Switch Village shopping center.
Cecille, a native of the Philippines, certainly had plenty to do just growing vegetables, including Asian vegetables. She said she opened the store for her son to have a business and to serve her own needs for special makings.
“Every time I needed to get the ingredients I like to cook with, I would have to go to Springdale or Rogers,” Cecille said. “So, I decided to open my own store. Some locals, including Asians, asked me to open the store. One recent English customer told me he was so excited! He said, ‘Please, please don’t close the store. Don’t give up and leave.’”
Currently the store has kale, other greens, lettuce, sweet potatoes, Irish potatoes, turnips, squash, picante peppers and habañeros from her garden. Everything is fresh and reasonably priced.
Other products come from around the world – sesame oil and Udon noodles from Japan, Nestlé table cream from Switzerland, banana sauce, sautéed shrimp paste and Arroz Caldo chicken soup from the Philippines, bean vermicelli from China (also known as cellophane noodles), and liver spread from New Zealand.
There are a number of products popular in different types of Asian cuisine, like red and green curry paste, coconut cream powder and coconut milk, squid fish sauce, sweet and sour sauce, dried mushrooms, rice sticks, kimchee base, spicy chili sauce, fresh and frozen rice paper, water chestnuts, nori seafood used to wrap sushi, tamarind, and wasabi. You can also find bulk Jasmine rice and large packages of black glutinous rice.
There are products most people won’t be familiar with, but you can always ask Cecille what to do with them. Sweet macapuno strings (gelatinous mutant coconut), for example, can be used as coconut pie filling.
Some products might not be that different from their more common counterparts. For example, Cecille said Skyflakes crackers are “just crackers. But some people like them a lot and are happy to find them.”
There are a wide variety of different types of canned drinks that might be hard to find elsewhere in town, including soy, kiwifruit, and guava.
Local meat includes lamb raised by Andrew and Madeleine Schwerin at Sycamore Bend Farm near Keels Creek, and grass-fed beef raised by Richard Potter in Powell, Mo.
Also for sale are also a variety of colorful caps hand crocheted by Cecille, and handmade knives forged by Joshua.
“I carry chopsticks, too,” Cecille said. “They are reusable.”
The Oriental & Farm Fresh Market, which opened Oct. 1, is open by 10-5 p.m. every day but Tuesday.